SHARDS!!

What is Carbon Dioxide? According to Wikipedia, it is \”an atmospheric gas consisting of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. \”Humor me, and just look at the Wikipedia page on Carbon Dioxide. Don\’t read the whole thing, just scroll up and down quickly and note the sheer volume of information contained therein. Go ahead, I\’ll wait. It\’s a lot, isn\’t it? I know, right? I can replace that whole page of brainsturbation* with one sentence.

Ahem.

Carbon Dioxide – It gets the beer from the keg to your face.

I have a kegerator, which is great, but a keg of delicious beer is pretty much worthless without nature\’s beer motivator, Carbon Dioxide. And don\’t give me no lip about no stinking party pump hand tap. Unless you intend to finish that entire keg RIGHT NOW, you can take your bicycle pump and put it right in your pooper. Even if you do intend to finish that entire keg right now, it\’s still going to be weak and crappy toward the end. Get yourself some CO2 or get yourself some bottles and cans.

I have Carbon Dioxide. Actually I have two cylinders of Carbon Dioxide. They are great. I love them. One was empty when I got it and I have never filled it. The other was last filled over two years ago (11/4/2003 to be exact – I mentioned it here). Thanks to a Bridgeport keg with a bad seal or a hole in it, the second cylinder is now empty as well.

Despite the fact that Carbon Dioxide is abundantly available in our atmosphere, literally oozing from the pores of virtually all plant life–OOZING!–the process of actually getting a metal can filled with the stuff is quite complicated and annoying. (UPDATE: My man B-sauce adeptly pointed out that plants, in fact, ooze oxygen while people and animals ooze CO2. I knew that, damnit.) There are companies such as Airgas who specialize in it, but their locations aren\’t centrally located, only certain locations fill tanks, most want to exchange your nice pretty, empty tanks for crappy, beat-to-shit full ones, and if I can\’t order something on the internet or find it within a mile of my house, it is officially complicated and annoying. I found an Airgas location about 5 miles up Atlanta Rd from my house that opens at 7:30am on weekdays. I love it when plans make themselves. I readjusted my day to be at Airgas when they opened this morning. I knew they wouldn\’t fill my tanks and that I would have to do an exchange, so I spent last night severing all sentimental attachment to my shiny aluminium cylinder. (Cue sappy montage of all the whimsical kegs of beer my CO2 cylinder and I have shared since late 2002.)

After missing the turn the first time, a .10-mile mistake that can cost you hours in Atlanta\’s morning rush hour, I made it to Airgas. I brought my two cylinders into the store, carefully remembering not to carry them by their necks all willy nilly. No explosions, por favor. I sat them on the counter and, while stroking my beard, announced, \”Two of your FINEST cannisters of Carbon Dioxide, my good man!\” He grabbed by cylinders and disappeared into \”the back.\” I watched a young employee chug a 16oz energy soda with a motorcycle on the can. He blinked widely a couple times, clearly in disbelief that he was up this early. The door to \”the back\” opened and cuz emerged with my two original cannisters. \”We\’re awl outta these\’uns. Won\’t have n\’more till Monday afternoon. Yep. I\’d say on Monday, LATE in the afternoon,\” and he walked away. \”THANKS FOR NOT WRECKING MY PLAN, DOUCHEFACE,\” I said, not out loud.

So, sitting at my desk, with two empty CO2 tanks in the backseat of my car, I put out some feelers as to where I could go, preferably during my lunch break, to get these two bitches filled or exchanged. Mr. Tim W, whose hand is holding the beer in the picture at the top of this page, pointed me toward Holox over between Tech and the Dome. This location was close enough for me to hit during my lunch break. So that\’s exactly what I did. I exchanged my shiny aluminum cannisters for a pair of slightly worn solid steel cannisters. I figure the loss of sheen and the upgrade from aluminum to steel makes me at least a little bit more of a man. Even though you\’re supposed to store them standing up, I laid each cannister down on its side on the floor in the back and took off.

On the way back to the office I stopped at Willy\’s and got two charolitas for lunch. Charolita is Spanish for The Taco That God Would Order If God Were Real And Ate Tacos. Seriously, they are so good. I took midtown\’s windy backroads the rest of the way back. As many of you are aware, there is a ton of construction going on all over Midtown. It\’s almost impossible to avoid. At one particular intersection I had to execute a tricky maneuver to avoid not killing workers, pedestrians, a tree, or myself and I ended up striking a large pothole. It was a jarring impact only made more jarring by traffic suddenly stopping. As soon as I came to a complete stop, I heard it loud and clear. The hissing sound. What followed was a fight or flight response that would rival … I have never in my life seen a pair of pants fail so fast. I pictured one of the tanks exploding and turning me and my truck into instant dry ice. A small child would roll up next to me on a tricycle, bumping one of my tires with her handlebar, and me and the truck would both shatter into a pile of shards. SHARDS!! I\’M GOING TO BE SHARDS!! I\’M TOO YOUNG AND SOBER TO BE SHARDS!! NOT WHILE I\’M IN CORPORATE CASUAL!! NOOOOOOO!!

A quick inspection quickly revealed that the hissing sound was coming from the errant airhose to some dillhole\’s jackhammer outside my window. Hey, Hamjack, you owe me a pair of pants.

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EXMEME \’05:

Alenda Lux
Audacity
Being Amber Rhea
Blog This
Daily Dose of Dave
Drama Wench
Geester
Grabbing Sand
Monotonous
My Daily Struggle
Radical Georgia Moderate
So-called Profundity
Str8jacket

* – ©, bitches