Cranks My Tractor

My son was on a cleaning spree. He wasn’t sick or anything, he was just anxiously cleaning his room out and getting rid of things that he had outgrown or broken. He did keep the Wiffle Ball World Series trophy with nothing but the baseball player’s legs from the knees down adorning the top. The trophy means a lot to him.

He had this bright idea that he needed a sofa or a futon in his bedroom. I didn’t think about it too much until he asked me if I was using the mini refrigerator I had brought home from work a few months earlier. I suppose he was making his own version of a 14 year-old “man cave.” I didn’t let him have the refrigerator.

In going through all of the boxes my son was throwing away, I kept finding these little packets of silica gel. You know what I’m talking about. They put them in vitamins and electronics and other things to keep the moisture down.

On the little package, it is always notes, “Silica Gel, Throw Away, Do Not Eat, Desiccant.” I suppose I should be happy that my son did not eat the little bags of silica gel. My oldest daughter decided to eat the Tylenol once; she was about a year old. At the time, she was an only child and if you have ever had to give a child ipecac, it’s not a fun experience. It makes them throw up – projectile style. (They say don’t give your children that anymore.)

The silica gel packages had my interest. I had seen these little packages in various forms over the years in medicine and cardboard boxes and always wondered what would happen if you did eat them.

No, I didn’t eat them.

I looked up the term, “desiccant.” I should have known what it means, but I didn’t. A desiccant “induces or sustains a state of dryness in its local vicinity in a moderately sealed container.” It is what you might call a “dryer outer.”

Why can’t I eat it?

Well, the truth is, I can eat it. I shouldn’t want to, it would be nasty and I would want to spit it out. However, I don’t think it would kill me.

Wouldn’t it dry me out? Or cause me to dissolve like putting salt on a snail or slug?

This called for a little research. I am a researcher, so I did a little research to find out if the silica gel packets would make me dissolve or something.

The first thing I found out was that silica gel can adsorb (not absorb, there’s a difference) approximately 40 percent of its weight in moisture. This sounded like it could dry me up or make me disappear or shrivel up like a slug covered in salt.

Being a math guy, I did the math to figure out how many packets of silica gel I would need to disappear. I weigh about 180 pounds and they say that your body is approximately 70 percent water. That means I have 126 pounds of water in me. I’m not sure what the remaining 54 pounds would look like, once the water part of me dries up. The salt covered slug does still come to mind.

If silica gel adsorbs 40 percent of its weight, I would need 10 pounds of silica gel to get rid of 4 pounds of water. According to my calculations, I would need to eat 315 pounds of silica gel to completely lose my water weight.

Further research revealed that each silica gel package weighs about one tenth of an ounce. Needing 315 pounds worth means I would need to eat 50,400 little packets of silica gel. That would be just too dog gone much work opening up 50,400 of those little packages.

However, I do now understand why they tell you, “Throw Away, Do Not Eat.” It’s just not worth the effort.

In a few years, someone will come on in an infomercial late at night with a new improved weight loss program to help you lose your water weight. They will be selling you silica gel in big dry dog food size bags guaranteeing that you will lose your water weight.

Don’t buy it. Don’t eat the stuff either. In the middle of all the drying out, it will make you really really sick to your stomach.

No, I didn’t try it.

And I didn’t research if the water would still be in the silica gel that would still be in me.

I decided to try out my son’s futon. Maybe that mini fridge isn't such a bad idea.

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