RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER

Hippy Smell

I used to be a humor writer. One of my main online outlets was over at epinions.com, where I’d write ridiculous product reviews for items I’d never used. Recently, I applied for an unpaid humor writing position and went perusing through some of my old reviews. I just hate to brag and all, but the following review for Body Shop Hemp Soap cracked me up.

It also helped me get the unpaid writing position, which I’ve been neglecting since getting the email confirmation… so David, if you’re reading this I haven’t forgotten, I’ve just been busy.

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Recently it came to my attention that some of my everyday activities may in fact be temporarily harming the environment. Although the harmful effects of human activity are infinitesimal in the long run, they may be great enough to cause our extinction. Even Stephen Hawking claims this is so. He fears our planet will soon have an atmosphere similar to that of Venus. Stephen Hawking urges us to colonize space immediately, (Philadelphia Inquirer, 10-9-00). I thought I’d do my part in cleaning up the environment. The first thing I did was buy a bar of “The Body Shop Hemp Soap.”

Hemp soap does not poison our sewers with toxins like other soaps. There’s still the issue of the hundreds of millions of tons of human waste down there, but hey you got to start somewhere. I felt that I was finally doing some good. But while better for the environment, hemp soap proved to be my undoing.

First of all, the stuff makes you stink like a hippie. I scrubbed and scrubbed wondering what the smell was, and then I realized, it was the soap itself. I decided to put up with the stink for the sake of humanity. Boy was that a mistake. A week after I began using the stuff, my boss called me into the office. Taking the liberty provided by a zero tolerance drug policy, I was immediately fired. Apparently my use of hemp soap in the company restrooms was indicative of a dangerously liberal tolerance towards other hemp products, including marijuana. I was officially blacklisted and released from my position.

With nowhere to turn, I found myself on the steps of Greenpeace. The address of the organization I found right on the packaging of The Body Shop Hemp Soap. It was in Greenpeace that I was introduced to harder forms of environmentalism. At first it started as a part time thing. On the weekends and such. But without steady employment, I turned to Greenpeace full time. Seven days a week I was there licking envelopes, (made of recycled paper), standing on the corner, begging strangers for money. In fact, I got so deep into environmentalism that I could no longer function in normal society.

I refused to eat at fast food restaurants. I stopped eating meat. I became unable to drive due to my skewed moral sensibilities. I boycotted countless hundreds of companies, products, corporations and organizations. My new practice of life pushed me to the peripheries of American society. My girlfriend of six years broke up with me after a heated argument about body hair.

My environmentalism then branched out to other areas. I left the Democratic party, joining the Green party instead. Who was I? I had lost my job, my girlfriend, I had given away all my possessions and I had now lost my political voice as well. And all because of hemp soap. It all came to a head soon after.

One day, while protesting the world economy, I was arrested. That was it. I had hit rock bottom. I sat in prison, sobbing quietly into the dirty hemp rags that I wore. If they hadn’t taken my hemp belt, I would have hung myself right then and there. But I struggled on, my commitment to mother earth all that I had to keep me going day in and day out.

And that’s where I am today. Hemp soap led me on a road to extreme environmentalism. I have toned down my rhetoric, but I will never be like I was. I am changed forever. The whole thing was a learning experience. I can’t say whether or not I have any regrets with the path I have chosen. It is not a reasonable or quantifiable thing.

Chances are, hemp soap will lead you down the road to increased environmental activity as well. All I try to do here is warn you where these practices can lead you. It is up to you. I just don’t want you to go into this as blindly as I.