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Now available for preorder:
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METH-LAB
FENG SHUI.

BY COLIN NISSAN

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Place Yourself in the Power Position

Make sure your chair is facing the front door. Working with your back to the front door places you in the path of negative energy and makes you the first one to get cuffed during a raid. One of many instances where the principles of feng shui, meth making, and common sense collide.


Clear the Clutter

When you clear clutter, you clear your mind. For example, once you remove the lithium from your batteries and finish stirring it into the pitcher of ammonia, throw out the battery shells. Eliminate the flow-choking mess and the risk of chemical burns in one practical step. Same goes for lab glassware and rubber tubing. Who wants to start out a 14-hour meth-making session by doing dishes?


Enhance Your Prosperity Corner

As you enter a room, the area to the far left is considered your wealth and prosperity corner. It's advisable to put something valuable and water-related here. An aquarium stocked with brightly colored carp is a good choice. One word of caution: you may, on occasion, wake up after a particularly blinding meth-smoking session and find remnants of a fried-carp sandwich all over your shirt.


Create a Nourishing View

Chances are you're covering up your windows so people can't see you making meth. Though completely understandable, this is a giant feng-shui no-no, and all the more reason why you need to keep your lab balanced and flowing. Think about what you see when you look up from your worktable. If it's a wall or a blackout curtain, maybe it's not just withdrawals that are making you feel antsy and depressed. This is the perfect opportunity to hang up some artwork, like of dogs playing poker.


Balance Your Senses

Phosphine gas is a byproduct of the meth-cooking process and is highly lethal to inhale. Lethal smells are so not feng shui. A good idea is to counterbalance a lethal odor with a delicious one, like that of a Mango Splash Glade PlugIn.

Plants are a key feng-shui component for their unique ability to absorb energy-stifling toxins from the air. Unfortunately, your average fern probably won't stand up to the piercing wafts of hydrogen chloride, so consider something hardier, like a fake fern.

Don't disregard the aural energy in your lab. Drown out persistent drones from the propane tank with a nice ocean-wave relaxation CD. You'll feel like you're making meth on a beautiful secluded beach while the tide slowly rolls in and the refreshing, frothy water gently creeps up through the burn hole in your shoe.


Free Your Life Force

If you're having financial problems, examine the lab for anything that might be draining your life force. Also look to see if you're on the best street corner for unloading rock. If your corner is good, maybe that unruly backroom where you keep the sacks of lye is the problem area. Or how about the broken lawn chair where you spend hours a day popping cold pills out of their infuriating foil packages? Reworking these areas can unclog the drain, so to speak, and get the money flowing again.


Build Harmony From the Outside In

The need to keep the exterior of your meth lab nondescript isn't necessarily at odds with the principles of feng shui. While you're at the store picking up bottles of ether and antifreeze, pick up some nice perennials and a few simple lights to line your walkway. Make sure the lights are bright enough to symbolically illuminate the path to success but dim enough to obscure your face in surveillance photos.

Be careful not to get too carried away with the landscaping. After all, you don't want to attract unwanted attention from the neighbors. If you're new to the area, someone will inevitably bring over cookies, so you'll just have to deal with that person as best you can. Just be sure to fight the urge to show off your new feng-shui space. Remember, it's still a meth lab and you're still wearing a gas mask, and that's a can of worms you don't want to open over a plate of pecan sandies.

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Colin Nissan's new humor book, Don't Be That Guy, is available at your local bookstore today.

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OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:

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Meth-Lab Feng Shui By Colin Nissan
A-Rod on Opening Day By Ben Greenman
The Assets at United States Treasury—Enter a World of Financial Indulgence By Chris Marcil and Sam Johnson
The Sexually Fluid Person's Guide to a Seamlessly Uneventful Coming Out By Amy York Rubin
Mongo: The Animal That Taught Me Things and Changed Lives By Jennifer Kahn and Evan Ratliff

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