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This fall was busy. I had class 2 nights a week, and I was in
a book club, and the other nights were spent doing school
work, work work, house work, etc. It's all over now and I'm back to
an almost totally clear schedule.
So what do I do with my spare time? I
finally figured out a way to burn incense in my car. No,
really. I had been mulling this over for some time, but had not come up
with an acceptable solution. The problems:
1) incense needs oxygen to burn, so it can't be a closed
container. However, I am pretty sure that having something burning on
the dash is a bad thing if you get in an accident.
2) the container has to be heat proof, or you could end up burning or
melting something that you didn't want burnt or melted.
The combination of needing air and needing to be contained (put simply,
"open" and "closed") had me stymied. The first idea involved using cone
incense in a tea ball. You know, the things you put loose tea leaves in
and put in a tea pot to make tea. Tea ball, not tee ball, the game
where even little kids can't strike out. Except me, but that's a story
for another time.
The tea ball has holes for air to get in and smoke to get out; metal
isn't flammable; and it could be suspended from the rearview mirror so
that the metal didn't conduct heat to anything flammable or plastic. A
foil lining at the bottom would collect the ash, allowing the user to
empty it outside of the car.
Seems pretty genius, doesn't it? My biggest issue with it is that I'm
not a fan of cone incense. Most of the best kinds don't come in cones,
and some come in such small cones that it might not be worth the
effort. Stick incense really is the way to go.
(Interestingly, incense is an industry in India that allows women with
few job skills to be employed. So by using hand-rolled Indian
incense, I'm a part of the solution, not the problem.)
In the past, the usual technique involved holding the lit incense stick
in one hand and driving with the other. This has its problems,
obviously. You can't change the radio station, answer the phone, or
write notes to yourself while doing this. And those are essential
drive-time activities. (I suppose a more compelling case would be to
point out that you can't shift gears or use turn signals either.)
A bigger problem is that people see you driving around with a lit
stick of incense in your hand. You pull up next to a car at a red
light, and the car full of teenage girls looks over at you with that
"wha-EVer-uh" look. The best thing to do is to pretend that you're
smoking a really thin cigarette.
Or better, pretend it's a joint. They smell the incense, they see you
passing a tiny cigarette around, they hear you say loudly to your
non-existent
companion, "Dude, you wanna hit this?" in a raspy SoCal surfer accent.
Trust me, they still think you're an idiot, but NOT because you have
open flame in your car. Now they're laughing because your weed smells
surprisingly like sandlewood.
The other day, I tried jamming the incense stick through the
plastic lid of a styrofoam coffee cup. This works ok, as long as the
end of the incense doesn't touch the side of the cup. That shit will
melt right through that shit, yo. If it's carefully positioned, the
stick hangs inverted in the center of the cup and the smoke comes
through the drink hole.
You're thinking: genius. I know.
The problem with this model is airflow; only a small amount of smoke
comes
out, while a lot seems to stay in the cup, and eventually it smells not
unlike
an ashtray. (Bear in mind, this was not exactly a clean room
environment: there was about a quarter inch of leftover banana split
hot chocolate in the bottom of the cup. It's one of the rotating
flavors at CitGo. Any size is only 69 cents.)
The next iteration was made with a Pringle's can and 2 garbage bag
twisties. The incense was twisted tightly into the twisties and
suspended upside down in the can. No lid to obstruct airflow
or smoke flow. This worked a lot better, and my drive was timed almost
perfectly to coincide with the burn time of the incense. The best part
was that when I returned to my car at lunch time, the sweet scent of
Nag Champa lingered in the air, replacing the ashtray/banana scent of
the previous day.
Seeing how well this method worked, the obvious solution is... wait
for it.... a milk bottle. I live next door to an antique store,
remember. I think if I can find an old pint (or a half-pint) milk
bottle, my troubles will be over. This weekend, I'm going antiquing!
The
rest of it, with pictures, is it right here.
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