It's raining today, so we sat around for ages wondering what we could do that didn't involve being rained on. As it turns out, when Reto moved to Aarau he was given an envelope full of junk (including local information and free tickets to things and so on) by the local council. We went through it all, looking for fun things that might be free, and I pounced when I found a piece of paper with something written on it in english (it's nice to be able to understand things, frankly, without having to stare at words for ages and then dredge the silty lake that is my memory, only to come up with ... well, silt, and maybe some dead fish). Anyway, on this piece of paper was information about the potassium iodide tablets that the local council had kindly provided, and how it is essential to keep them around in case the local nuclear power plant (which is about 10 kilometres away) has some kind of disaster. Apparently if there is a "serious nuclear power plant accident where the safety tank fails" (whatever that means), our only hope of survival, or something like that*, is to take these potassium iodide tablets. But since I am not really living here, I didn't get any! Which means Reto lives but I get a radioactive thyroid and die**! That doesn't seem very fair! (incidentally, I could just go to the chemist and buy some more tablets, but where's the possibility of complaining then? Although I'm sure that even if I was well stocked with life-saving potassium iodide tablets, I would still find things to whinge about in the event of a local nuclear disaster)
* Apparently if this nuclear disaster happens, the potassium iodide will stop radioactive iodine from being absorbed by your thyroid gland. If you don't take the tablets, your newly radioactive thyroid will presumably make you turn into a teenage mutant ninja turtle or spiderman or something, and then you'll die. No doubt hideously.
** Or get turned into spiderman/a teenage mutant ninja turtle. Or possibly a twenty-something mutant ninja turtle, as long as it happens relatively soon.
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3 comments:
testing
Are you there . . . ?
Don't say you haven't been warned about the nuclear plant. One of my top-100 books would have to be Raymond Briggs's 'When the wind blows' in which the UK government issues everyone with a bag to climb into in the event of a disaster, no doubt to facilitate the clean up afterwards.
Ha! You'd be laughing if you had potassium iodide as well as the bag. Although if you actually got into the bag you'd want to be careful with the laughing what with the possibility of suffocation and all.. although surviving nuclear disaster only to die of laughing would make for a good story. You'd want to keep your fingers crossed for an afterlife.
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