Did My Shampoo Just Change My Sex?

One of the advantages of being married to a Green Czar is, of course, being spared every kind of disaster by exposure to weird, body-and-soul-destroying chemicals. The best part is I don't have to raise a finger--most of the time. The Green Goddess just makes the bad stuff go away.

But then she started messing with my SHAMPOO.

Now, the male gene for emotional and domestic stability often finds first expression by attachment to our earliest cosmetic products. It's like a baby duck bonding with the first living creature it sees. Only with us Greenfellas, hanging out in the locker room at 13, parting our hair with a little dab o' do-ya, it tends to be Old Spice, Bryllcreem, Mitchum Anti-Perspirant. Despite the mixed messages the advertising sometimes delivered ("All my men wear English Leather or they wear nothing at all") we still are fiercely loyal to the old brands.With shampoo, that tended to be a brand that preyed on the fear of white specks showing up on our black tuxedos (a slight disconnect at age 13 fashion-wise), and, after we got to college and realized chicks were hep to the whole white specks anxiety, to that old standby with pictures of flowers on it. Who could be against, like, herbs? (Heh-heh.)

Of course it actually had been years since I bought any of those old standbys, but then the other day I got fed up with washing my hair with plain soap because the Green Witch hadn't been to the drugstore. So on my way home from work I broke the rules. And got the scariest lecture about a kind of F-word you'll never hear on television:Phthalates.

Yeah, that kind of Phth-word. SCARY.

Holding her trusty yew switch as a pointer, the Green Queen rapped my nethers and said: "Exposure to phthalates--chemicals widely used as synthetic fragrancing agents, as well as in plastics--correlates to abdominal obesity and insulin resistance in U.S. adult males, according to a March, 2007 study in Environmental Health Perspectives online. The CDC says that all Americans have phthalates in our bodies, and previous studies have linked the chemicals to subtle genital and reproductive hormone changes in male infants."

Naturally, I immediately checked myself out. And my pals, that gang of reluctant but trying Green Men called the Greenfellas. At the top of this entry is what we looked like--nothing subtle, right? [Editor's note: the photo was removed by divine intervention, but take our word for it... In fact, take several words: hideous, blubbery, gastropod-like.]

Scared yet? I was. And out to recycling went those nasty phth-phth-phth-alates.

[If you like horror movies about giant tadpoles mutating and eating small cities you'll love reading about Phthalates on GreenerPenny.com]

Who is that Green Man?

Who Is That Green Man?



"Don't do that," said my wife at 6:35 in the morning as I started to fill the tea kettle with water from the tap.

"Coffee," I gently reminded her. "It's good."

She shook her head. "Let the water run for a minute first thing every morning. Gets the lead out of the pipes," she added helpfully, as I continued to stare at her.

"Don't do this," I said. "It's too early to be green."

"It's never too early." She yawned. "Besides, I don't want you to get Alzheimer's from lead poisoning. Don't want to have to change your diapers for 20 years."

"Ah, there it is: the self-interest principle at work. Adam Smith would be proud of you."

"Who's Adam Smith?"

"The Scottish economist who called self-interest the invisible hand of the marketplace? The inventor of the idea of a consumer-regulated free market? You don't know who he is?"

"Oh, that Adam Smith." She yawned, a gape so grand I saw tonsil cleavage. "I haven't had my coffee yet."

"And why is that, Mrs. Green Goddess?"

"It's been over a minute now. Fill the kettle."

The teenager staggered silently past. There was a crash as he fell into the living room sofa. I broke an egg into the little Teflon frying pan.

"I wish you wouldn't use that pan," she said.

"Stop," I said, cutting the Grafton cheddar.

"Just for him. He's still growing. For us, it's okay, the Teflon won't make any difference."

"Stop."

"Teflon's fine, it's just that when a pan gets old and degrades it gets into your food. Chemicals from Teflon wind up in your blood stream. In studies this has been shown..."

I put a mug of coffee in her hand. "Go. Away."

When it was ready the teenager got up off the sofa to eat his home-made Egg McMuffin: organic whole wheat English muffin, natural additive feed-free egg, sharp cheddar cheese from Grafton, nitrite-free Canadian bacon. I paused to admire my handiwork, because this was as close as I would get to having any. (She wants me to lose ten pounds; an "experiment," she calls it, which almost always translates into nothing fun for breakfast, and no desserts.)

Back in the kitchen, I made myself a bowl of Special K, sliced a banana, poured skim milk. By the time I sat down at the table, the Green Goddess had finished her coffee and was back in the kitchen making a second pot, while the teenager was done eating and had gone off to shower, leaving me alone with the sports page and my first cup of the day. It was organic Mexican shade tree half-caf, and not half-bad.

The teenager left for school. The wife left for a meeting, but gave me a fanny pat before she went. "My green man," she said. "I'll pick up a pie for dessert at the farmer's market."

The system works, I thought. Maybe Adam Smith was on to something.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: The Green Man threw out the Teflon pan. The above photo contains nothing but good honest steel.
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