Testing II

by strangedayonplanetearth

The soil test results arrived last week, from Dr. Joshua Cheng of the Environmental Sciences Analytical Center.  There sitting innocuously in my inbox, a report with the deadening news the garden has lead.  That is, a lot of lead.  606 ppm.

I wrote back, “I have been eating from this soil all summer — can you give any further recommendations?”

No reply.

Not only have I been eating from this soil, I have been walking in it barefoot, scraping it from under my fingernails, and generally inhaling it day in and out. In my blissful oblivion, I thought the only question about soil was how well it grew stuff.  But all the years of lead-based gasoline are living in my backyard, like some gruesome fossil record.

It cost $10 to test the soil, and I can’t test my blood as I currently have no insurance.  Capitalismé.