Atmospherics

Have I mentioned the air here?  You think you got it bad with smog in New York or Los Angeles?  Think again.  There are no pollution controls that I can see.  There is a fine coating of dust everywhere, it gets into everything.  Think of a powdery substance like talcum powder, but with a gritty element.

Take, for instance, an e-mail recently sent out by the IDC’s Senior NCO, an Army Master Sergeant.  He’s organizing a computer cleaning day with an air compressor because he’s noted that, when turned on, the CPU tend to “blow smoke” … dust getting inside the boxes.  I see it on my desk, in my tent, everywhere.  Even the keys of my computer keyboard have that fine coating which makes me want to constantly wash my hands.

I’ve been told that the dust is the airborne residue of local Afghans burning anything they can find to make a fire, be it for cooking or for heating.  “Anything they can find” is pretty all-encompassing, and at times I shudder to think what is coating my fingertips as I work my keyboard.  And then I go wash my hands (again) and put it behind me.

So the stuff in the air is in my lungs as well.  In fact, I’ve heard talk around the base that people who spend long periods of time here are more prone to develop asthma from all the particulates in the air getting into one’s lungs.  For that reason alone, I’ve decided that it’s not a good idea to use my CPAP machine.  The air is bad enough without having that dust force-fed into my lungs while I sleep.

All that rather makes cigar smoking pretty benign, doesn’t it?  I recently found myself on the receiving end of a few Habano Romeo & Julieta cigars, corona size in a metal tubo.  I think I’ll fire one up tonight, it’s gotta be better than the air itself.

Happy smoking, my friends!