We Have Good Chemistry Together

SENATOR:
Good afternoon. I said GOOD AFTERNOON. Thank you. The Sub-Committee on Homeland Security, Over-Regulation of Commerce, and Large Sandwiches will now come to order. As you all know, the Sub-Committee has before us several pieces of so-called legislation which purport to improve homeland defense by over-regulating, taxing, and otherwise emasculating our chemical industry. Now we all know that the only way to end terrorism is to find these terrorists and shoot them in the nuts. But the legislation is before us, and this is what we must deal with. So we have invited a representative of the chemical industry here today, Mr......Mr. Lester Offenboat...to set us straight. Mr. Offenboat, good afternoon.


CHAD:
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for the opportunity to explain how stupid this legislation really is.


SENATOR:
Don't mention it. For the record, please state your full name and position so my fellow senators from the other party can see what a real man looks like.


CHAD:
L. Chad Offenboat, executive director, Chemical Industries United of America and the World.


SENATOR:
Excellent. Now Mr. Offenboat, please state the mission of your organization.


CHAD:
With pleasure, Mr. Chairman. Most Americans never took chemistry in high school, let alone college.


SENATOR:
Yes sir. Wouldn't know an oxidation process from a rusty nail.


CHAD:
Well actually, a rusty nail would be an oxidation process.


SENATOR:
I knew that. You think I didn't know that? That's why I said, for Christ sake.


CHAD:
Yes sir, of course, I apologize. I didn't mean to.....


SENATOR:
Proceed.


CHAD:
Well Mr. Chairman, most Americans have no idea how their fertilizer, their gasoline, and their Old Spice after-shave are manufactured. They just know how vitally important these products are to our daily lives.


SENATOR:
You said it.


CHAD:
Yes sir. So Americans may unwittingly believe that their government can cavalierly restrict or otherwise disembody our industry without losing these precious products that make our lives worth living.


SENATOR:
Yes they do. And isn't that a pain in the nuts?


CHAD:
Yes, Mr. Chairman. So our association works to correct these misapprehensions.


SENATOR:
And rightly so. Now this so-called legislation, first of all, calls for having surveillance cameras throughout all chemical factories. Is that viable?


CHAD:
No, Mr. Chairman, it certainly is not viable. We have found from experience that everytime we turn on video in the plant, our employees start singing and dancing for the cameras. It's very distracting.


SENATOR:
You can't have that. It's not viable.


CHAD:
Exactly. we cannot have that in the middle of the work day. Plus, there's the cost.


SENATOR:
Yes, absolutely. Some of these cameras can run two, three hundred dollars apiece.


CHAD:
That is correct, Mr. Chairman. We can afford to have either surveillance cameras or caps on the bottles. We can't afford both.


SENATOR:
Well, I'd pick the caps.


CHAD:
That was our thinking as well, Mr. Chairman.


SENATOR:
Excellent. Now they're also saying that these five-foot chain link fences you have don't exactly pose an insurmountable barrier to a terrorist. How do you respond to that?


CHAD:
Well again, we could spend an exhorbitant amount of money and build 10 foot concrete barriers that no one could climb or jump over. But anybody with high-grade explosives, a battering ram, and a hundred heavily armored soldiers would still be able to break in, so what's the point?


SENATOR:
There's no point at all. It's not viable. You put a padlock on the fence gate every night, don't you?


CHAD:
Yes we do. And if I may say so, it's a very good padlock, Mr. Chairman.


SENATOR:
Well, that seems perfectly safe to me. Now they're also claiming that these hydrogen fluoride plants are being located in densely populated areas that could easily be exposed in the event of sabotage.


CHAD:
Oh please.


SENATOR:
My sentiments exactly. Oh please.


CHAD:
Hydrogen fluoride isn't that bad. Exposure would destroy your entire nervous system, but it has no effect at all on the liver.


SENATOR:
Well thank you for setting the record straight. And what about these chlorine plants?


CHAD:
Once again, people exaggerate. If one of our chlorine plants actually exploded, so what? You'd have to be living within 500 miles of it to feel anything at all.


SENATOR:
Don't we all expose ourselves to chlorine when we jump into a swimming pool?


CHAD:
Of course we do. A chlorine plant exploding in your neighborhood would be the equivalent of you sitting in a swimming pool with the water over your head and never leaving.


SENATOR:
Really?


CHAD:
Yes, absolutely.


SENATOR:
So you would die.


CHAD:
Yes, Mr. Chairman.


SENATOR:
You would be dead.


CHAD:
Well....yes. But this sort of thing happens every day.


SENATOR:
Well not every.....Yes, of course. You're absolutely right. You know what I say to these cowards in New Jersey with their stupid over-regulation? You know what I say?


CHAD:
What do you say, Mr. Chairman?


SENATOR:
I say NUTS TO YOU. What do you think of that? Nuts to you.


CHAD:
Well, Mr. Chairman, we all think that that position, most definitely, would be viable.