Example:
I’ve found that large disposable medical pads like these are really handy to use as small dropcloths. I use them to protect my workbench or table when painting, staining, gluing or doing other messy close-up work. I also use them to protect the floor around the temporary litter box when my son’s cat comes to visit. They’re reasonably cheap, less than 25 cents apiece in largish quantities.
Why I wish I didn’t know about this: I started trying them for various tasks when I ended up with a large number left over after my wife died of cancer, before which they were being used for unspeakable things I’d rather not remember.
They ARE useful little fuckers, aren’t they? I practically hoarded them when my (spoiler alert) now late husband was hospitalized a few years ago.
His death was like a mule kick straight to the heart but it didn’t stop me from putting one under the kitty litter box.
UNRELATED I SWEAR but I know what gangrene smells like, so if I’m in a survivalist situation I guess I can tell you if that foot is gonna have to be sawed off. (That knowledge is courtesy of a small animal with a prolapsed uterus, and predates my husband’s illness by about a decade … also pretty sure he didn’t have a uterus.)
Every time I have learned how a magic trick works, I’ve regretted it. Much more fun to not know, often because the mechanism or technique is very mundane. I still enjoy wondering and speculating, but in the end I really don’t want to know.
I wish I didn’t know that the same sea otters who look so cute when they’re holding hands while asleep are also inter-species rapist-murderer-necrophiliacs.
It’s a cool fact to bring out (especially when someone foolishly tries to share cute sea otter memes with me), but I nevertheless wish I didn’t know it.
I know how to restrain a cat and shave its butt without help.
I know what it looks like when a dump truck collides with a bicyclist at 40 mph. Fascinating, but not exactly a good memory. That was a fun first day of kindergarten.
I know that if one of my dogs kills a critter and leaves it in the back yard and I don’t get rid of it, the maggots will come. They will make a squirming pile on top of the corpse and whittle it down to hollow bones.
My knowledge of giving sub-q hydration, insulin shots and ear sticks to cats is something I’d rather have remained blissfully ignorant of. I’d rather I didn’t know how a hanged person’s neck looks after they’re dead. I’d also really rather I’d never learned what happens when a tie rod breaks at freeway speeds. I also wish I knew considerably less than I do about how to cope with unmedicated bipolar people.
Having had skin cancer removed, I know what it sounds like to have living flesh cut off with surgical scissors. Note to self: wear ear plugs next time.
I know how to humor an Alzheimer’s sufferer by pretending to believe whatever weird stuff they come up with, knowing that they’ll forget all about it in a few minutes. That’s not a happy memory.
Humoring a drunk person is quite similar to the Alzheimer’s thing.
Not exactly the same, but related to the OP, I know that a sanitary napkin can be good in an emergency for covering a bad gash or other bloody injury. It’s clean and absorbent.
