Body-care products can lead to explosive situations

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/03/2018 (3063 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I don’t wish to cause widespread panic, but it has come to my attention that almost everything on the planet is potentially lethal, especially grooming products.

This unexpected hazard leaped out at me when I read a shocking report in the Baltimore Sun newspaper about a car that blew up last week in the normally quiet community of Woodland in Baltimore County, Md.

According to the newspaper, the car exploded (prepare to furrow your eyebrows and perspire heavily) after the young guy driving the vehicle gave himself a liberal spritzing with an aerosol body spray.

The story does not explain why the man chose to douse himself with body spray, but, as a veteran guy, I can take a wild guess — he was trying to make himself irresistible to women.

(WARNING: Irrelevant digression ahead.)

Guys of my particular era (the Jurassic) can understand the concept of trying to turn themselves into a James Bond-style hunk of burning love via the tactic of coating their pasty bodies in cologne. Lots and lots of cologne.

Back when I was a teenager, my friends and I, instead of bathing on a regular basis, would cover up our toxic teenage stench by shamelessly slathering our pimply little bodies with gallons of something called Jovan Musk Oil.

This had the effect of rendering us invisible to women because we were cloaked in an impenetrable fog of ultra-sexy musk molecules. The intense fragrance rays also caused any woman within a three-block radius to run away because exposure to a cloud of undiluted muskiness is like having bear repellent sprayed directly into your eyes.

(ALERT: Irrelevant digression ends, regular column resumes.)

Getting back to our story about the potential dangers of grooming products — according to police, the Maryland driver was running his car’s air conditioner with the front windows rolled down when he decided, for whatever reason, to apply the aerosol body spray.

When he was finished spritzing — prepare to say “AHA!” — he lit a cigarette.

Here’s what Baltimore County police spokeswoman Jennifer Peach says happened next: “I would say, it would be best to describe as a sudden and violent expansion of the air molecules in that vehicle.”

In other words, it created a boom that blew the Chevy’s doors open, pushed the roof up and shattered the front window. Fortunately, Peach said, the driver appeared unharmed, but was taken to the hospital to check for hearing damage.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: “Wow, Doug, smoking sure is dangerous, isn’t it?”

Well, you could not be more correct, but that is not the point. The point is we have to move on to our next example of a popular modern grooming product causing an alarming explosion inside a motor vehicle.

According to a news story I am holding in my hands, a woman in Vancouver, Wash., got the shock of her life last summer when she walked to her car after work and discovered her windshield was severely cracked and something was sticking out of the glass.

The thing that was lodged in Karmen Ayres’ cracked windshield was, in fact, a can of hairspray the woman had left in her car on the rear passenger-side seat on a wickedly hot summer day.

What happened was the overheated can exploded, then slammed through her windshield.

“It launched like a rocket,” the insurance salesperson told reporters at the time.

For those keeping track, what we are talking about here are two alarming examples of grooming-product-related explosions that could have had lethal repercussions.

Again, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: “Hey, Doug, do they happen to have video of either of these explosions, because I would literally pay to watch something like that.”

Sadly, there is no video evidence, which is unfortunate because, to my conservative way of thinking, these are easily the second- and third-most bizarre in-car explosions I have heard about in recent memory.

Neither of them, however, can hold a candle (this would be a potentially dangerous lit candle) to an explosion I read about in a New Jersey Star-Ledger story that appeared under this ominous headline: “Flaming kamikaze squirrel ignites car.”

This deeply concerning story states that a buck-toothed New Jersey squirrel was gnawing on some overhead power lines that were connected to a transformer directly above a 2006 Toyota Camry.

Here’s what the car’s owner told the newspaper: “The squirrel chewed through the wire, was set on fire and fell down directly to where the car was. The squirrel, on fire, slid into the engine compartment and blew up the car.”

At this point, the question is: Where do we go from here if we are going to protect innocent motorists from having their vehicles explode?

I think there is only one logical course of action — for the time being, everyone should park their cars in their garages, and either walk or take public transportation whenever they need to leave the house.

It should be obvious we can’t ban flaming squirrels, because that would be nuts. And, as anyone who owns hormone-riddled teenagers can tell you, banning aerosol body spray would create a huge stink.

I have more thoughts on this burning issue of public safety, but I have to run, because I’m sure I can see smoke wafting out of the can of musk oil in my car’s glove compartment.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca