I actually had the can pried open before I stopped myself. What in God's name was I doing? Just because it was a water-based polyacrylic didn't mean it was nontoxic. I squinted harder at the label, read a list of neurotoxins that might've stopped me using the stuff on our kitchen table if I'd read it last fall. Too late for that--but I wasn't about to coat our new birdfeeder with neurotoxins. I had a sudden vision of a cardinal swooping in, pecking eagerly at the sunflower seeds, then keeling over and landing with a splat on our porch, his eyes glazed and his little asterisk-feet twitching.
I put down the brush. And pondered my hypocrisy. I feel all noble every time I pour our homemade vinegar, salt and Dawn concoction on weeds instead of using Roundup. But how many times do I rush ahead with something I don't even realize is poisonous, just because it's fast and easy?
Granted, we're all getting a bit paranoid, wiping our hands every time we walk into a public place. (Shouldn't we be wiping strangers' hands instead?) But the facts remain: We're surrounded by poisoned apples, drinking leached chemicals, munching chlorinated carrots and feeding our kids toxic peanut butter. As for the dogs, their supreme delicacy, their ultimate reward, is a piggie ear. Which, if it came from China, might bear traces of formaldehyde.
Some days I wish I could hire a consultant to go through our home and get rid of all the allergens and toxins I don't even know about. Other days I wish I'd never learned they exist. Because where--as one asks, rhetorically, when rationalizing less than ideal behavior--where do we draw the line? What's left that 's sure not to harm a living creature? What creatures is it OK to harm? (I vote for cockroaches.) And how severe does the harm have to be before it counts against us? (With my luck the Hindus are right and I'll have a Kafkaesque reincarnation as one of my enemies.)
A nice guy at Rural King found me nontoxic shellac. It's meant for indoor use, but I'll spray on many, many coats, because I can't risk any chipping of the no-doubt toxic paint underneath.
Time was, a bird's only enemy was the cat.
--Jeannette Cooperman, staff writer
