EI, EI, EI, O

There is a lawsuit being filed somewhere, I think in the Denver area, about a woman getting sick from perfume at work and trying to file a suit to stop it. Not an uncommon story at all; more common than anything, really, but the surprising thing is one, it was reported in the mainstream news, and two, the following response to it on a website that I usually go to called Fark.com

Fark.com posts funny, bizarre, and out of the ordinary news articles of all sorts and is just about the most entertaining website on the Internet. I go there whenever I need a good laugh, which is just about every minute of every day; unfortunately there aren't enough good articles on the site to fill up that much time (although I have heard there might be if you subscribe to Total Fark, but so far I am satisfied with the very large amount of articles they post every day and think I would be overwhelmed by more).

Along with their articles, they have discussions on each article, which are quite often far more funny and entertaining than the articles themselves, and you can kill a lot of time reading comments. Fark seems to have people from every corner of the country, and several other countries as well; so it is quite fun to read because no matter where an article is from, there is almost always someone from the town it took place in or nearby who pops up and contributes their two cents. I've been particularly surprised to find other people from Maine and Montana on there.

The thing about Fark, though, is that their reason d'etre seems to be to make fun of every topic possible in every way possible. They have a very dark sense of humor. Usually this appeals to me, at least for the topics I don't have much of a stake in; and for the topics I do care about, that they still make fun of, I've learned to not care much knowing that they make fun of everything equally.

Usually I don't read the articles about subjects I care about (mainly autism related ones) so as not to be offended. So when the perfume article was posted, I said, no way am I reading that, I can hear the laughing and bickering and "Suck it ups" from a mile away.

But then someone posted on an MCS list that their comments were actually good, so I went to look. And I was blown away.

Almost every single person almost without exception said that they too hated perfume, they couldn't stand it, it made it difficult to work, some even cited specific health related problems from it, and one mentioned having to go to the hospital for it.

And then someone even mentioned MCS by its name (or one of its many names) -

"Have a couple of friends with this condition. It's called Environmental Illness.

We call it EI for short.

EI, EI, Oh.

/Aisle seat "

and I was blown away. Knowledge, understanding, and humor in one. Way to go!
(That is where I got the name for this post from.)

That is the most compassionate post I have ever seen on Fark. Come to think of it I can't ever think of a thread where so many people agreed that something was good or bad, let alone something as controversial as this.

They may not have agreed with the lawsuit, but they got how bad perfume can be.

It seems the general awareness of the public, then, on issues of sensitivity to chemicals, or at least common chemicals like perfume, may be a little higher than I thought.

Either that, or Fark is a biased sample, but I would highy doubt that.

So that was an enjoyable thing to read.

***

I hereby suggest that every MCS gathering, for those who are lucky enough to have them, shall start with a solemn rendition of "EI, EI, EI, O...."

(EI= environmental illness)

MCS Humor - never thought I'd see it.