How dry I am

Here at Type Like the Wind, we’re very cautious about product endorsement.

It’s a big responsibility, as well as a slippery slope. One glowing review here, another one there and — bam! Next thing you know, I’m sitting here with my PJs covered with brand logos, like a NASCAR driver.

Yet there are some products so superior that they simply must be singled out. Introducing DampRid by WM Barr. This busy little company, based in Memphis, makes stuff that does some utterly thankless work.

Its calcium chloride-based goods suck up moisture without machinery, toxic fumes or slurping sounds. This may not sound like a big deal, but if your closets smelled like a wet (and perhaps, ill) small animal when left to their own devices, you’d love DampRid too.

My personal favorite from the DampRid line is the Fragrance-free Hanging Moisture Absorber. This device is simple: a two-part clear-plastic bag on a small hanger. The top section has a chunk of what I presume is calcium chloride, a substance about which I know absolutely nothing except that it’s white and described in two words. The bottom bag is empty. Within about 3.5 weeks, that bag is full of water and the clump of white stuff is gone.

(That’s in my closet. My husband got the one in which it takes twice as long for the water-bag to fill. I’m sure he didn’t realize the vastly different moisture levels when he gallantly insisted I take the slightly larger closet. The one with the gigantic, sweating water-heater in the corner.)

Once I got over feeling creeped out that my clothes hang in the indoor equivalent of a protected wetland, I came to enjoy the Fragrance-free Hanging Moisture Absorber for its cool magic-trick performance. I don’t actually watch it work (that would be just weird) but I do check it every few days. When it’s full, I empty the bag and put in a new one.

(A true Portlander would use the collected water for plants. I pour it down the drain, listening nervously for the Eco-Police to pull up in their Prius, with solar-powered blue lights flashing.)

I order the Fragrance-free Hanging Moisture Absorbers directly from the company because no store in Greater Portland sells the unscented ones. Sadly, the “Fresh Scent” version turns the closet into a place that smells like an ill, wet, small animal who made a long stop by the perfume bar at Macy’s before coming over. I get a $35.95 six-pack every few months; probably the only six-pack of any kind I’ve purchased in 20 years.

I’m grateful that whatever it takes to assemble these products is happening way out there at WM Barr. That somewhere out there is a big, big pile of calcium chloride and people willing and able to shovel it into small bags, then send it across the country.

I worry about a lot of things: unrest in the Middle East, hate crimes, my own inevitable bone and memory loss; the fate of newspapers. One thing I don’t worry about is my closet. It’s important to take comfort where one can find it.