Last Friday I received the Standard Chemical Kit from Elemental Scientific Karen ordered for me for Father’s Day. Naturally, I could not wait to open the box, and neither could Kaitlin. So, together, we unpacked all the chemicals and started to sort them out on the counter in the garage. I showed Kaitlin the color coding on the bottles and explained what they mean and she help me sort them properly into groups. While unpacking, I reviewed the “rules” with Kaitlin. These, like all chemicals, need to be treated with respect, she is not use them without me present, and so on. Now I have to address proper storage for the long term.

Friday afternoon I took Kaitlin to a birthday party. Karen was out for the evening, so I took the opportunity to ride my bicycle down to the fire station. (It is very much ‘down’, about two miles away and a 300 ft drop in elevation. The ride back up the hill was a good workout in the hot sun.) Karen really wanted me to make sure that if anyone were to ‘report’ me to the authorities that I had that base covered now, and I agree.

I talked to a couple firemen and the fire chief about what I was doing and if they had any concerns. I did not expect them to have any. If anything, they were encouraging and supportive. Their recommendations are, as I planned already to do:

• Keep the MSDS printouts handy
• Have at least one dry-chemical fire extinguisher on hand, within arms-reach of the garage door going into the house
• Keep the supplies stored properly
• Call them if I ever planned to have a large stock of any given chemicals

One fireman offered me his excess supply of Muriatic Acid. Before I could respond, one of the other firemen said he would use it for his pool, which was good by me. I am not looking for used stock of unknown origins. I left feeling I gained their trust by including them in what I am doing, which is what I set out to do. Based on their comments, like, “It’s the people who are not telling us what they have in their garage that worry us more”, that make me feel the fire fighters feel about the same as I do. We would rather have the devil we know knock on the door.