This week, as I got up in the morning and made myself breakfast, the host on my favorite morning news show asked me to hang on through the break, because they had an important upcoming story about the surprising dangers of ... granite countertops.

I stopped halfway through buttering my English muffin and stared at our new stone countertop, the one we'd just paid an arm and a leg for. During our recent kitchen renovation, my wife and I had gone through extended, sometimes heated discussions about this very countertop, with her arguing that she'd lived for years with a slipshod tile countertop I'd installed myself, and once, just once, she'd like to have something nice in her life, and me wondering (aloud) if she'd be happy if once, just once, she had something almost nice in her life. Like laminate. I knew it was a losing battle, but I put up one heck of a fight. (If you can call incessant whining and sulking a heck of a fight.)

But what, I thought, could possibly be dangerous about a granite countertop? It just sits there, looking nice but reminding me, every single morning, that I spent almost as much on a slab of rock as I did on my car. Other than causing serious injury to my available balance on my home equity line of credit, I couldn't really think of any way my countertop could do me in. I stared at the TV, waiting patiently through an advertisement for household cleaner, my mind racing.

The report, when it came on, was underwhelming. Turns out wealthy homeowners across the country are starting to freak out about the possibility that their fancy countertops might be (and I am not kidding here) ... radioactive.

I held my breath. Had the country's countertop makers secretly been using stone quarried from Los Alamos? Was this a secret terrorist plot to irradiate the nuclear family as we prepared our microwave family dinners? The report started with creepy music that conjured up images of serial killers with jumpsuits and hockey masks. No. Americans are panicking about a recent New York Times story claiming that granite countertops might be emitting ... duh duh duh duuuhhh ... Radon.

Radon, for those out there who haven't tried to sell or buy a house, is that naturally occurring radiation that never bothered anybody until somewhere around 1986, when some genius figured out how to make millions scaring people into thinking their basements were killing them. Millions of Americans (or saps) spent hundreds of millions of dollars installing equipment to ventilate their basements. By the time it was over, the American people had made it safe for thousands and thousands of contractors to retire early.

The TV report did little to support the idea that counters were deadly. Granite emits "minute" levels of radiation, and for the most part, consumers are safe. Still, given the frenzy, consumers might want to get their counters tested by an expert. (And by an expert, we mean the same guy who rooked you for expensive radon abatement 20 years ago, and who has decided that he'd like to buy a boat so he can really enjoy retirement.)

Still, this upper-class hysteria could help me win an epic argument. I waited till my wife came in to get her coffee, and gave her an "I told you so" look. She stared at me, unimpressed.

"Did you hear?" I said. "Turns out your fancy granite countertop could be radioactive! You just made us spend thousands of dollars to commit slow motion suicide!""

She looked at me, then at the countertop, then back at me again.

"So, granite countertops cause cancer?" she asked. I nodded, looking both superior and serious.

"You had to have it," I said, shaking my head sadly at her deadly consumerism.

"I'm not worried," she answered.

"You should be," I said, "As far as I know, plain old laminate never killed anybody."

She pushed me aside to get at the coffeemaker.

"That's not granite, you dummy," she said. "It's soapstone."

Turns out soapstone can hurt you, too. When you bang your head on it.

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