Monday, December 08, 2008

Increasing the cost of air

The good news is that we bought a humidifier this weekend, so when I woke up this morning I did not have to use my fingers to forcibly open my dried-shut eyes.

The bad news is that through some strange twist in the economy of home appliances, humidifiers now cost about the same as what I paid for my first semester of law school.

What's up with that?

There was one choice with a lower price tag: It was a cute pig humidifier, with an .08 gallon tank that shoots steam out the pig's nose. It was only $40, and I'd have named it Baloney, which would have made me giggle on and off for at least three days. But I suspect that refilling Baloney every 45 minutes would have shortened the duration of his charm, and winter is LONG here in Cambridge. So we went with the more expensive model--it has no name, and no nose; it's altogether devoid of comedic value. Today, instead of giggling, I'm breathing deeply of our newly moistened air, seeing dollar signs of how much we paid per breath...

I still might name the thing Baloney. That's the first non-expletive that comes to mind when I consider the new cost of steam.

4 comments:

LBN said...

Which one did you get? I hate mine...

Trish Ryan said...

It's called Air-O-Swiss and it has all sorts of buttons. And a zinc bar. I don't know why, but apparently zinc is important...

Stacy said...

I have a cheap one, but I only have 700 square feet or so in my apartment. It does the trick, but it does require frequent refills.

Anonymous said...

My parents bought an air filter that is worth more than my car. It has the added feature that sounds this huge alarm, louder than a fire alarm, if the filter needs to cleaned which only happens at 4 oclock in the morning. I wonder if they make air filters that look like pigs.