Will This Kill Me?: A Guide to Pipe Safety
Pipes: the almighty hazard, the dreaded killer, the nationwide epidemic. Everyone has had a bad experience with them, from touching one that was slightly too hot to having one literally murder your firstborn by filling his or her lungs with its foul asbestos dust. Pipes are a scourge on this great nation, and the only way to beat this problem is by getting smart. So here’s a guide to the most common pipe related issues and how to tell if a pipe is safe, or a potentially fatal threat.
Pipe Hazard #1: The Big “A”
Yes, I’m talking about asbestos. This one is especially relevant to us at Cornell, considering all the pipes that are still lined with it. Waiting for our incompetent university to deal with this pressing problem on its own will take forever, and dealling with all the construction this will inevitably cause? Yikes. Not to worry though. You can easily deal with this problem on your own. First, you need to make sure that the pipe is actually lined with asbestos. To do this, go ahead and take a big lick of it. Asbestos is only dangerous when inhaled in large quantities, so it should be fine to eat. That’s right, it’s time to ingest-os that asbestos. Once you’ve determined that the pipe’s insulation is indeed asbestos—it will taste faintly of citrus—you can move on to step two. Take a thumbtack or a safety pin and poke a bunch of holes in the pipe’s lining. Remember, asbestos is only dangerous when inhaled in large quantities, so letting out a little at a time is perfectly safe. Over a span of time, all of the asbestos will dissipate, making the pipe harmless. Congratulations, you’ve saved Cornell!
Pipe Hazard #2: Not So Sick Burns
Pipes can also cause fatal and potentially life threatening burns to your arms, hands, eyes, ears, nose, and any other body parts that naturally come into contact with a pipe. Too many poor, unsuspecting Americans have assumed a pipe was perfectly safe to lean or sit on, and have paid the ultimate blistery price for their ignorance and underestimation of pipes. This problem is a difficult one to solve, because it can be difficult to tell whether or not a pipe is boiling hot from a glance. Unfortunately the only way to truly know a pipe’s temperature is to just go in head first and touch it. There’s a fifty-fifty chance you’ll be totally fine, or you’ll end up in the hospital with second degree burns. But at least you’ll have an answer. Once you’ve touched the pipe, collecting valuable data, you’ll want to record that data in the pipe notebook you carry around with you at all times and write down how hot that pipe was on a scale of 1-10 for posterity.
Pipe Hazard #3: Look Out Behind You!
Another way pipes can be harmful is if they are weaponized against the unsuspecting public by dangerous pipe-wielding street gangs. This is the hardest pipe problem to counter because an attack from a pipe-wielding assailant could happen at literally any moment. The only way we as a nation can defend against this threat is to arm ourselves with the power of anime. Do they have pipe attacks in Japan? No they don’t, and anime is why. If you watch as much anime as you possibly can, your brain will absorb all the combat moves, and the next time you’re threatened by a hooligan with a pipe, you can bust out your sweet anime moves to defend yourself. That thug will never know what hit him.
So if you see a pipe and you’ve determined that it doesn’t fall under any of these categories, then congratulations! Your pipe isn’t a threat, and you’ve found one of the good ones. If your pipe isn’t safe but you keep calm and remember the tips in this guide, then you should come out of that pipe situation a-ok. If not, god help you. And remember, stay safe out there America.
– Via R
