Great American Smoke-Out

Today is the Great American Smoke-Out. I'm not sure why it's so late in the year. The weather-guesser on the local news said that the average date of the first freeze of the fall/winter is November 17 (in Dallas). Sure enough, we had our first freeze of the season this morning.

But the GASO is a national event and other areas probably get their first cooler weather before this. So why do they hold the annual turn-on-the-furnace-to-burn-off-the-dust-and-set-off-the-smoke-alarm (sending everyone in the house scurrying outside) event so late? I ran my furnace a couple of weeks ago when the weather was nice and we could have the windows open (and the kids were playing outside already).

But I'm a good, patriotic Merkin, so I turned on the gas fireplace as a substitute. Didn't do much. Probably because the glass doors keep out most of the dust. The smoke alarms didn't even go off. And judging from the lack of people fleeing their houses to get away from shrieking smoke alarms, no one else waited this long either.