# Any "I was doing it the hard way" stories? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 16, 2024, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335 "2024-07-16T18:47:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2024, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/61 "2024-07-18T21:46:20Z")
This goes back over fifty years. When I was a wee tot, my mom made me wear clip-on ties to church. She’d grab my collar and force the little clip down onto it. This was not a good experience for me. One day I started playing with a tie and found out that that clip snapped open with a good tug from my finger and with a little squeeze would snap back down on my collar without any fuss at all! Some years later (early '70s) I had a big red velvet bow tie that was a clip-on. It worked the same way! I think mom resented she wasn’t the one to figure this out. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2024, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/62 "2024-07-18T22:12:08Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > So I took a closed end wrench and cut a slot in it using a hacksaw. This makes my spleen hurt. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2024, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/63 "2024-07-18T22:14:45Z")
Considering they just invented (the hard way) the flare nut wrench. [![](https://static.grainger.com/rp/s/is/image/Grainger/13N594_AS02?$adapimg$&hei=536&wid=536) ](https://static.grainger.com/rp/s/is/image/Grainger/13N594_AS02?$adapimg$&hei=536&wid=536) ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2024, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/64 "2024-07-18T23:20:18Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > So I took a closed end wrench and cut a slot in it using a hacksaw. Aren’t wrenches made of hardened steel–which is very difficult to cut with a hacksaw? ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2024, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/65 "2024-07-18T23:58:14Z")
> [@motu](#): > > Turns out the pump assembly on top of the sink is free moving, not attached to the sink or counter. You just pull it out, stick a funnel in there and pour away. GRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr! I got us [one of these](https://www.amazon.com/Dispenser-Upgraded-Check-Little-Bottle/dp/B0CWDHKJNG?th=1), and it’s the bomb. There’s nothing quite like turning a weekly job into an annual one. Now we have a ginormous refill bottle of Dawn under the sink, and we don’t have to think about it. It took a minute to get it working properly, but worth it. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/66 "2024-07-19T00:39:25Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Aren’t wrenches made of hardened steel–which is very difficult to cut with a hacksaw? They’re not super hard, else they would be brittle and snap when subjected to lots of force. I still have the wrench. It’s a 23 mm, not a 22 mm: [![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53866041746_238ecdff33.jpg) ](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53866041746_238ecdff33.jpg) [![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53866394534_fb40fcd4e6.jpg) ](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53866394534_fb40fcd4e6.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/67 "2024-07-19T10:37:57Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > That’s exactly what he wrote - F = ma. University of Pittsburgh by any chance? That’s exactly what happened with my midterm. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/68 "2024-07-19T14:49:16Z")
Folks are gonna think that I’m making something hard to do. But I’m not. I’ve a plow truck for my house. Big tires and I chain up all four tires. The standard practice of laying the chain out behind the tire/s and driving over them was not working. Absolute pain in the ass. It’s easier to just get a bottle jack, and just jack up one tire at a time and drape the chains over from the top. Hook the chain up and get it properly adjusted. Oh, it’s still a pain. But easier and less frustrating in the long run. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/69 "2024-07-19T14:55:56Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > if you just want to eat the avocado without using it in a recipe, you can use a spoon to scoop it directly out of the skin. That’s how we eat them. If you fill the hole with Worcestershire sauce, it really improves it. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/70 "2024-07-19T16:09:29Z")
This reminds me of a coding task I had back in my early software development days. I had to loop through an array of objects and if a certain condition was met, delete that object from the array. (This was before collection classes made this kind of stuff really easy.) I couldn’t use a regular for-loop because the end condition (length of the array) would be constantly changing as I deleted items. I tried different approaches to keeping track of the array length, different looping strategies, when the obvious solution hit me: start at the _end_ of the array and iterate backwards, so that if the array length changed it didn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/71 "2024-07-19T18:42:40Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > After I was done my supervisor was like “Wait, did you carry that bucket up the stairs? Most people just leave the bucket at the bottom of the stairs, wet the mop, and take just the mop upstairs.” D’oh! Couldn’t you have also poured out the water used to clean the downstairs bathrooms, carried the empty bucket upstairs, and refilled it in the upstairs bathroom? Or was it too large to get under the tap? > [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > I don’t understand. To peel an avocado you make two incisions lengthwise at ~90° to each other all the way around. Then you pull the skin off. If it does not come off, the avocado is not ripe anyway. > Do you eat avocados unripe in the USA? I eat mine ripe enough that the peel comes off. I cut them in half and then pull off the peel (unless I just eat them out of the peel). The pit comes off one half when the halves are separated, and I either cut the other half off the pit or scoop the pit out with a spoon. It never occurred to me to try to stab the pit out with a knife, and I was very confused at first when I started reading about people injuring themselves when preparing avocados, until I found out how that was how some were going about it. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/72 "2024-07-19T19:09:55Z")
There are a few varietals of avocados and some lend themselves to peeling better than others. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/73 "2024-07-19T19:53:01Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Couldn’t you have also poured out the water used to clean the downstairs bathrooms, carried the empty bucket upstairs, and refilled it in the upstairs bathroom? Or was it too large to get under the tap? Well yes, it would have been too large to get under the tap. It was one of those big yellow janitorial mop buckets with wheels and a big wringer with a handle. You pretty much had to fill it with a hose. We filled them at a “mop sink” in the back room of the store. There there was a faucet with a big bottle of concentrated cleaning chemicals attached. When you turned on the faucet it would dispense water mixed with the proper ratio of cleaning chemicals through the hose. So the main reason I was thinking I couldn’t refill the bucket upstairs was because there was no source of premixed water with cleaning chemicals up there. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/74 "2024-07-19T20:47:08Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > I use Cervaise’s method. It works quickly and easily. And if you just want to eat the avocado without using it in a recipe, you can use a spoon to scoop it directly out of the skin. everybody I know does it that way … and I live in an advocado country… * * * my take … I was young … donno 13,14 or so years and started programming in basic (in the 80ies, on the countryside with next to no literature, all as selflearned ) I wanted to make the word “THANKS!” scroll at the bottom of the page from right to left … and managed to do this - but the pesky “!” stayed behind … so every position the word scrolled to the left, I got an extra “!” on the screen left behind. …so I wrote a lenghty routine that would go to a certain cell on the screen and delete the superflouse"!" … but it sure was tedious as hell, dumb and inefficient …(that much I knew) took me a long time and was a lot of code for very little benefit. its late night already - I got the replacdement routine done about half way and go to sleep … wake up a couple of hours later to a yell of mine … walk over to the computer, replace the: “THANKS!” with "THANKS! ", delete the long wided replacement routine and go back to sleep. felt like a million bucks when I woke up the next day. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/75 "2024-07-19T21:14:52Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > It never occurred to me to try to stab the pit out with a knife, and I was very confused at first when I started reading about people injuring themselves when preparing avocados you don’t really stab the pit … you flat-smack it with the sharp edge of the knife, and then sideways wiggle the knife (which is jammed/stuck in the pit) to break the pit lose from the flesh of the avocado. Hard to hurt yourself, as you don’t even have to hold the half avocado with your other hand … ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/76 "2024-07-19T21:22:25Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > There are a few varietals of avocados and some lend themselves to peeling better than others. Ah. That wouldn’t surprise me. They don’t grow around here, and we may well only get a couple of varieties in the stores. > [@WildaBeast](#): > > Well yes, it would have been too large to get under the tap. I[. . .] So the main reason I was thinking I couldn’t refill the bucket upstairs was because there was no source of premixed water with cleaning chemicals up there. Makes sense! > [@Al128](#): > > you don’t really stab the pit … you flat-smack it with the sharp edge of the knife, and then sideways wiggle the knife (which is jammed/stuck in the pit) to break the pit lose from the flesh of the avocado. > > Hard to hurt yourself, as you don’t even have to hold the half avocado with your other hand … People seem to manage it, though. > **[Avocado Hand: What Is It and How to Avoid It](https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/2022/11/avocado-hand-what-it-and-how-avoid-it)** > > You grab an avocado, take a knife, and begin slicing it in your hand—it seems pretty standard, right? This method is all wrong and could actually be dangerous. Here's why. – apparently they know the knife part, but not the “don’t hold it with your other hand” part. And it still seems to me harder than removing the pit either with your hand or with a spoon. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/77 "2024-07-19T21:36:19Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And it still seems to me harder than removing the pit either with your hand or with a spoon No, it’s a breeze. You just bring the knife down as though it were an axe and then twist. You want to use something like a chef’s knife with some heft behind it. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/78 "2024-07-19T21:38:04Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And it still seems to me harder than removing the pit either with your hand or with a spoon. It can be difficult to get an avocado pit out using your hand or a spoon without mashing up the surrounding avocado in the process. If you’re making guacamole that’s fine, but if you are trying to make avocado slices it’s not desirable. In any event, to avoid injury when I remove a pit with a knife, I keep my other hand out of the way completely. A quick strike with a sharp knife, a twist, and the pit pops right out, usually still stuck to the knife. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/79 "2024-07-19T22:11:21Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > No, it’s a breeze. You just bring the knife down as though it were an axe and then twist. You want to use something like a chef’s knife with some heft behind it. +1 and 9 out of 10 times the pit comes out completely clean and still on the knife ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335/80 "2024-07-19T22:28:38Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > > And it still seems to me harder than removing the pit either with your hand or with a spoon > > No, it’s a breeze. You just bring the knife down as though it were an axe and then twist. You want to use something like a chef’s knife with some heft behind it. It’s a breeze to hook it out with my thumb or with a spoon. And no need to haul out the chef’s knife for something that doesn’t otherwise require it. > [@robby](#): > > It can be difficult to get an avocado pit out using your hand or a spoon without mashing up the surrounding avocado in the process. > > If you’re making guacamole that’s fine, but if you are trying to make avocado slices it’s not desirable. I like avocado but am not much for guacamole. Avocado slices are what I’m after; but I’ve never mashed the thing up significantly getting the pit out. Maybe this, like the peeling, is a matter of us getting different varieties? Maybe it’s harder to get the pit out of some than of others, even when they’re ripe. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-i-was-doing-it-the-hard-way-stories/1004335.md?page=5)