Mother of Invention – PODS

You hook 'em, I'll clean 'em and fry 'em.

My wife just left this morning on her annual weekend retreat with some girlfriends. Now I’m left home alone for a glorious three-day weekend.

Hello T-R-O-U-B-L-E!

Naturally I’ve got a lot going on, but I’m still going to try to squeeze in a little blogging as time permits. In between 14-hour bouts of sitting on my ass, eating entire bags of potato chips and sour cream dip, and watching my toenails grow, I shall endeavor to pump out the same high quality of bitching to which all of my reader have grown accustomed.

For today, I wish to announce the latest in a long series of miraculous and societal-changing inventions from the team of creative geniuses that power the Abyss.

We are proud to present PODS:

Personal Oxygen Delivery System

What is PODS and what does it do?

Quite literally it allows life where life could not exist before. Like on my three-mile commute to and from work.

The bulk of my workday commute consists of three-lane, one-way surface streets through my small home town. One of the reasons I left the big city for the small town was clean, fresh air to breathe. I figured in a small town like this that would be a given. I figured wrong.

Prior to moving here, I took a trip up to check out the digs and search for a house to buy. That trip happened to be in March. What I found was a peaceful, quiet town with not too much going on. I found a house I liked, made an offer, and put my home in the big city up for sale.

Everything went fairly well, and before I knew it, all of my possessions were loading into a tractor-trailer moving truck and my entire existence moved one thousand miles to my new home.

Moving day happened to be in July. The first thing I noticed was … WTF? The town had exploded in activity and was buried in people. My realtor had neglected to tell me that the population grew by a factor of ten in the summer months. It was just like the big city – only in a small town!

Ten years later and I’m still here, and I’m still cursing that realtor. Yeah, she’s the one who sale me an “irrigated” acre that meant I had to pay membership dues to the irrigation district yet they would never bring water to my property and there was no way out of the district. Hosed by a realtor and welcome to your new home. Mwuhahahaha!

So now it is summer and my car has broken air conditioning. I drive with my windows rolled down and the sunroof open. At least I’ve got the sun on my face and fresh air in my lungs, right? I’m one lucky bastard.

Except for that part about the fresh air. That doesn’t exist. At least not when I’m driving through this quaint little burg.

Problem #1 – The multitude of arms hanging out windows with lit cigarettes. Yep, as a matter of fact, it turns out the world is your very own personal ashtray. And where does all that secondhand smoke go? Right into my car and into my lungs. Cough, cough. “I love the fresh air,” I gasp.

Problem #2 – I’m sitting at a red light and a truck pulls up next to me. It’s high up in relation to my car. And it has a weird exhaust pipe that points sideways. It’s exactly the height of my driver’s side window. And it’s pumping out emissions right into my face by the metric ton. “Gotta hang on,” I gasp. “Can’t … breathe …”

Problem #3 – On a three-lane one-way street, I typically drive in the center lane. Since the street is jammed with cars, this makes me the commuter equivalent of the “center square” on Hollywood Squares, only instead of stupid ass questions asked of celebrities, life is playing tic-tac-toe with my lungs. You see, I’m surrounded by eight cars in that tic-tac-toe grid, and all of them are belching out noxious, thick, smog that is black as a moonless night. I cough, I choke. I can’t breathe.

You are especially likely to encounter problem #3 if you, like me, live in a region that still doesn’t have a DEQ (Department of Environmental Equality) and doesn’t require yearly or bi-yearly “smog checks” of vehicles. This is mostly of benefit to the indigenous persons living just outside of city limits affectionately known as “two-holers” who occasionally crawl down from the mountains nearby to stock up beer, cigarettes, and survival supplies. (But never toothbrushes, deodorant or soap.) Note: A two-holer is defined by the Urban Dictionary as “an outhouse that has two seats (holes), allowing two people to move their bowels at the same time.”

What I’ve noticed through empirical observation is that being able to breathe can be quite beneficial to operating a motor vehicle. It is hard to obey traffic laws when one is dead.

Thus, the need for PODS. The system consists of a compressed air tanks in your car. The way it works is that you proceed to some area that is reasonably safe and mostly free of airborne toxins. This might be the driveway at your house, if you are lucky. Otherwise you might have to proceed a few miles out of town when the system needs to be charged, which consists of our patented sucking system that takes actual breathable air and compresses it into storage tanks.

To operate, simply don the airtight Let-Me-Breathe helmet system. This helmet creates an impermeable barrier that (briefly) prevents the deadly air generated by others from entering your lungs. It is made using our patented and proprietary military imitation (MI) technology and also functions as a crash helmet that meets NASCAR safety standards. The helmet system connects to the compressed air storage tanks and provides enough of an air supply to last for several average commutes.

The helmet is also available with optional noise canceling technology that can protect your ears from douchebags who think they get cooler the louder they crank their system up. (It has been scientifically proven that the inverse is true.) With the optional car stereo adapter, you may actually be able to hear your own radio – in many cases for the first time in years.

Remember PODS next time you want to drive through town – and increase your odds of living through the experience. Not everyone can be a flaming tard of an asshole, and with PODS, that person is you!

Keeping you safe during your commute is our passion and our mission. Wouldn’t you rather to be free to be killed by your job instead?