I’m on the road in a hotel in Corpus Christi, Texas right now. My resources for writing anything are limited, because I only brought one book with me. Somehow I don’t feel confident about surfing the internet on an “unsecured connection.”
I think that on other trips my e-mail password was stolen somehow on a connection like this one. I started getting a lot of strange spam. Well, all of it is strange, but these had my name on the “sender” line. Some of them were notices that the e-mail I had tried to send had been rejected. They were to people I never e-mailed. Once I changed my password it stopped. So, I guess I’ll change my password again as soon as I go home.
With that out of the way, I’ll share a sampling of “household tips” from a strange second-hand book I found. It’s by Earl Proulx, and called “Vinegar, Duct Tape, Milk Jugs, & More—1,001 Ingenious ways to Use Common Household Items to Repair, Restore, Revive, or Replace Just about Everything in Your Life. “Whew! That’s a mouthful.
Some of his ideas seem legitimate enough. Some are just plain weird:
For those of you who want to find a stud (like in the wall, goofy), the suggestion is to use an electric razor. That’s right. Turn the razor on and place it against the wall, passing it back and forth. It will buzz the whole time, but the sound changes when the razor passes over a stud in the wall. I guess I’m supposed to tell my husband at this point, “Honey, all you have to do to find a stud is look in the mirror.”
Still with me? The book offers ideas about the many uses for mayonnaise, other than slapping it on a sandwich. If you have a water ring on a piece of wooden furniture, you can try rubbing it with mayonnaise and leaving that on overnight. Supposedly, the oils in the mayonnaise displace the water in the ring and will make it disappear. Also, according to the book, you can put mayonnaise on price stickers that are on a glass or enamel surface to loosen the sticker; it will remove road tar on the car, also.
Ketchup is not just for your French fries; it will work to polish brass.
The author gave several uses for dryer lint. I’m serious. He suggests you can use that lint for packing material when mailing, as doll stuffing, for shoe stuffing if your shoes are too loose, or for “clouds for that school art project or diorama.” Umm. Somehow I think I’ll pass on those. I can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would want to save dryer lint.
Where the author really lost me was with his suggestions about kitty litter. Clay litter is good for soaking up oil spills on the driveway. I’ll go along with that. But, he suggests using it as a facial mask. He says that you can put two tablespoons of the all-natural clay litter in an old coffee grinder to pound it into a fine dust. Then, mix that with 1-2 tablespoons of water until it is the consistency of wet mud. Spread the gunk on your face and let it dry. Eeeewww! He doesn’t explain what this is supposed to do for your face. Except perhaps interest the cats. I have five felines. This does not appeal to me.
There are many more suggestions in the book. Unfortunately, most of them are of no higher quality than the aforementioned ones. I guess that’s why the first owner of the book didn’t keep it for a reference book. The Yankee Press actually published this book in 1999. I guess that should give an aspiring writer hope. If this can get published, anything can.
The used book only cost me a couple of bucks, so I guess I can’t complain. Except that I could have bought a coffee with that money. Next time I’ll be more discerning.
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The strange e-mails from yourself are spoofing, a trick a lot of spammers use. Annoying, but not normally the result of a stolen password. Increased spam unfortunately happens as you increase where you leave your e-mail address online. Blog software is supposed to have a way to prevent them from datamining the information, but I’m sure they crack the code from time to time. It sucks, it really does.
Clay mask for a facial mask? Ewww. But I have found handy tips in books like that before, like all the Coke tips. Pepsi does not work as a substitute for cleaning the car battery contacts either – it must be Coke. Interesting, huh?
“Spoofing.” Then, they probably got the info from my other website. At one time, I allowed people to link to an e-mail to me. I had changed that before it started happening, but I just noticed that one page from an old version of my site (which I neglected to take down when I changed things) has a very high ranking in Google. Guess I need to go look to see what is on that page!
Coke cleans car batteries? I did not know that, but I know that you can pour coke over a pot roast and cook it and it tastes pretty good. The roast also gets very tender. Makes me wonder what it is doing to my stomach lining!