I don’t really understand it. I couldn’t explain it well if i wanted to. I’m not a scientist. All i know is that somehow, during the summer, red dust makes it all the way from africa to texas in the wind. It settles on patio furniture, the car windshield, the porch railings, and anything left outside. The same thing happens when they are burning the fields down in mexico to plant new crops. Everything gets covered in ash. It’s hard to know whether what i’m looking at is dust or ash, african or mexican. Sometimes friends call me up to discuss it, “well its a bad year for the african dust don’t you think? Its all over my back patio! I’ve already had to refill the windshield wiper fluid for my car twice.” I just know it’s dusty. The problem is this:
It’s called “mr. cool”. It is a heating/cooling unit used for RVs and tiny houses. It has a filter that resembles the plastic tray from the dryer lint trap. It is hard plastic. You are meant to remove it once a month and empty the insects caught in it out in the yard. Then you rinse it under the sink, dry it, and place it back in the mr cool unit. The thing catches june bugs, not dust. Dust slides right through the small holes in the plastic “filter” tray and covers everything in the house with a fine dust. I remembered reading books about the dust bowl when i was a child. They spoke of placing towels under doors and windows and having to sweep every day to keep the dust out of the house. I just gave up on having the house clean. I mean i could sweep, mop, scrub, and polish the place every day and before the sun was down the dust would have coated everything in a thin layer once again. So i just became accustomed to seeing the can opener, the window sills, and the blender covered in dust. So too were the dogs covered in dust. Everything was touched by dust.