But Krouse's arsenal is stocked with much more potent, original stuff than that thumbnail sketch usually signals, beginning with her use of Mae West as the collection's unifying spirit -- each story is preceded by one of West's shrewd, libidinous epigrams.
It's been called the world's strongest acid, and is 100,000 billion billion billion times more potent than the stuff in your stomach.
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Another example would be the strip-club-ish, blues number "My Wife's Home Town" (which, of course, is Hell), in which he rages, "She can...make things bad, she can make things worse, she's got stuff more potent than a gypsy curse".
But that's precisely what's happening; scientific research indicates that with higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the poison ivy plant grows larger, and its "oil" (a.k.a. the awful poisonous stuff) becomes more potent.
Which, in fairness to your parents, is accurate: It's about five times more potent than that brown Thai stick stuff you get wrapped up in red string.
She's got bottles stashed everywhere, sniffing her way through about six bottles a week, and sometimes even soaks a surgical mask in the stuff for a more potent pine high.
This cynicism doesn't come from nowhere: Every time the media discovers a new "drug epidemic," journalists get quotes from experts saying that this time, it's really different and the new stuff truly is more potent, more addictive, and deadly than anything that has come before.
Add more if necessary, but remember bleach is potent stuff and it also smells.
