Minivan Meltdown

So, today, beleaguered auto-maker, Toyota, recalled more than half-a-million Sienna minivans due to a potentially faulty cable issue. My husband owns a Prius (which I love) and I sort of feel like poor Toyota is like the former prom king who grows up, gets fat and nobody wants to date them anymore. Are their glory days over?


Can I just say, I drive a mini-van and I love it. I never thought I'd say such a thing and I admit I got a little teary when my husband and I decided to trade my sporty little red Accord in for my Odyssey. But nearly six years later, I can honestly say, it's the best car I've ever owned. And just to prove I'm not ashamed of my mom-ified set of wheels, my brother gave me  a t-shirt that states, "I'm too sexy for my minivan." I often wear it to the gym with pride.


While I love my mommy-mobile, I can't say the same for everyone else on the road. Today, in fact, I was parked outside of Old Navy here in suburban Atlanta and when I returned to my car, some lovely passerby had left a hastily scribbled note on my windshield that read:


"You give mini-van drivers a bad name! Learn how to park or buy a smaller car! I couldn't get in my car thru the driver's side b/c of you! Had to crawl through. You are a jerk!!!"


After reading this heart-warming note, I checked to see if I was, in fact, badly parked. Lo and behold, not only was I aligned straight, my wheels were not even touching the line on either side. I have no idea what this person was talking about and perhaps they parked closely on my side and were unable to get into their own car after I arrived. Or maybe they were just having an exceedingly bad day and decided to take it out on a random mommy driver.


In either case, the note shook me up slightly and reminded me the importance and blessing of cutting people slack. I mean, there are earthquakes going on almost daily now, teens are becoming fatal victims to schoolyard bullies, volcanos are erupting, people are losing their jobs and pensions, etc, etc.


So, unless your life is just so horrendously awful, learn from this stranger's behavior and please think twice before lashing out over something as meaningless as a badly parked car. I mean, life IS short. Perhaps mouthing off to me gave this person a little lift or somehow improved their day, but I doubt it. More likely, this is an angry individual who is unhappy and couldn't help but try to bring someone else down with them.


Or, maybe they were ticked off that their Sienna was just recalled.


(for more information on that recall, go to  www.toyota.com/recall)

Excuse me while I climb up here on my soap box

In my house, we wash our hands a lot. I could get a headache just trying to count the number of times I clean myself up after taking out the garbage, changing a dirty diaper, filling up with gas, handling food, going to the bathroom, working out at the gym, etc, etc. You get the idea.

But there is one thing you won't find at my house: antibacterial soap. Though I used to swoon at the delicious scents I bought by the dozen at Bath & Body Works, I later learned that antibacterial soaps contain a chemical called triclosan, which is actually a pesticide. While the jury is still out on just how risky this agent may be, the potential harm it causes is even more serious for children. Use of antibiotic products may also be contributing to the rise of so-called super-bugs -- germs that, ironically, grow resistant to antibiotics merely because  they mutate and grow stronger in order to survive among so many chemicals (like triclosan) designed to get rid of them. These mighty scourges just don't want to leave -- sort of like Kato Kaelin after the OJ Simpson trial.

Thankfully, the FDA announced today that it is re-evaluating the safety of triclosan and one U.S. Representative (Edward Markey, D-MA) lauded the decision and vowed to pursue the study of similar chemicals found in everyday products that may also pose a higher risk to kids.

The move is a step in the right direction. In the meantime, take a tip from your great-grandmother and give those hands a good scrubbing with plain ole' soap and water. It's safe, effective and often cheaper than those antibacterial versions. At our house, we swear by Method and Cleanwell soaps. In fact, Cleanwell's products employ the use of the botanical thyme, which is a natural disinfectant with major germ fighting properties. In the shower, the gels made by Shikai and Kiss My Face work wonders, with nary a chemical in sight.

I should point out that the FDA, while pledging to conduct more research on the matter, defended the continued use of triclosan because human studies are inconclusive. However, animal studies show that the chemical can alter the regulation of hormones.

And if I'm going to bug my kids to wash their hands, the least I can do is make sure all that washing isn't doing more harm than good.

Receipt Deceit?

So, today a friend asked if I'd heard that BPA is now found on cash register receipts? If you're reading this blog, I'm going to assume you know what BPA is and not go into a lot of detail on that. But, in a nutshell, for those new to this "paranoid" stuff, BPA (bisphenol-A) is a chemical found in many plastics that has been linked to cancer and endocrine disruption. It's found in everything from the linings of canned food, to baby toys and teethers and even in drinking water. Most of the earth's population has some level of BPA in their bloodstream and the question now is, how much is too much? The EPA is currently examining that and BPA was removed from baby bottles last year in the US. But my thoughts are that if an item is of questionable safety and there is a known safe alternative (glass or BPA-free plastic), why not use that whenever possible?

I'd not heard about this receipt link, so I decided to check it out and guess what....it's true! That being said, the research I found to support this link was all traced back to one scientist in particular and the journalist in me is a little skeptical about attributing something so newsworthy to only one source. Apparently, this "news" came out last year but received very little play. I'm also a tiny bit bothered by the fact that this information has yet to be published formally. It would seem to me that if the data is true, a credible scientist would be chomping at the bit to get this out to the masses. So, for now, I will take it with a grain of salt because receipts are not exactly something one can avoid in this day and age.

But for a moment, let's just assume this is something we ought to be mildly concerned about. (or at the very least - aware of.)

Again, if you breath and function in society today, it's virtually impossible to avoid amassing a collection of  paper receipts, even among the greenest of people who try to avoid excessive paper consumption. This new BPA danger was first raised by an organic chemist named John C. Warner, who found that copyless carbon paper used by most credit card machines and thermal imaging paper used in most cash registers, utilize a thin layer of BPA in order to create images. The papers don't look any different from those that don't contain the chemical and apparently, tests show that the vast majority of receipts tested positive for BPA.

The most frightening aspect of this to me (again, if the study is to be believed), is that the BPA contained in these receipts is of a free-form that directly contaminates anything it touches, rather than leaching due to heat or prolonged contact, as in the controversy over baby bottles. That means that every time my kids go riffling through my wallet and find receipts, they walk away with BPA on their hands, which is then transferred to everything they touch. Warner argues that since BPA mimics estrogen and estrogen can easily be absorbed into the skin (think of those birth control patches), wouldn't it stand to reason that BPA on receipts can similarly sink into our skin on a daily basis from these ever present papers?

I already try to avoid receipts whenever possible, not because of BPA, but because it's less for me to recycle. I no longer request receipts when I take money out at an ATM or fill up my car at the gas station. I found that those just ended up junking up my purse or diaper bag and in the end, weren't really necessary. But, I do tend to hang onto store receipts indefinitely since you never know when you may need to return an item.

So, what to do?

For now, I file this away in my "potential stuff to worry about but that I can't really do much about" file and go on with life. But perhaps I'll think twice before I let my kids play with something as harmless as a little piece of paper.