When I was 8 I asked my teacher if the world might someday run out of air. I seemed to be using a lot it. Running, jumping, climbing; if it took oxygen, I was doing it, and I couldn't remember making any to replace all the breathing I'd been doing.
There couldn't be an endless supply of air, right? Earth -- I remembered from our Solar System unit -- was a blue island, floating in space with no oxygen tubes pumping in new air. I was worried, because it seemed that the whole of mankind had somehow missed this.
To be fair, that I was afraid at all was mostly Mrs. Wilson's fault. Our unit on water conservation made it clear that the next drop might indeed be the last one to come out of that faucet. Our ancestors settled here because of the bounty of wet goodness Minnesota provided. But let's be honest class: ten thousand lakes won't last forever.
Our unit on electricity was the same. The cartoon she showed us first how the pluses (+) and minuses (-) flowed into our homes and out of our light bulbs. But wait: plot twist ahead. The Plus/Minus Factory wasn't big enough for all the light bulbs in our town. It was like some municipal teeter-totter: every time you flipped a switch, bathing your basement in incandescent excess, some poor sap across town was suddenly stuck in their basement without a clue as to which direction the stairs were.
On some level, I was angry that this was a problem at all. Why hadn't the adults thought about this before installing all those faucets and light bulbs? Why waste time making a cartoon to explain conserving electricity to me!? You've gotta plug that TV in! The VCR, too! Plus, I'm already watching it in a room that's just glowing with unnecessary light bulbs. I count the bulbs. Fourteen of them. Fourteen! What were adults thinking?
Mrs. Wilson didn't know the answer. She invited the Principal -- Dr. Macy, PhD. -- into our classroom so 30 children could bring to her attention this clear and present danger. Dr. Macy told us that we got our air from trees, and we (she said "we" but it was really the adults, again) were cutting all the trees down for paper. (The blatant stupidity of this trade was infuriating.) Eventually, though probably not in her lifetime she said, the earth would indeed run out of oxygen.
I walked home from the bus stop very slowly. No running, no climbing. I went down to my bedroom, turned off the lights, and practiced holding my breath.
I...(gasp)...Heart...(gasp)...You...
