# Items you use that were not its intended purpose. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 23, 2007, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012 "2007-12-23T09:40:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SomeUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@SomeUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SomeUserName)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/1 "2007-12-23T09:40:08Z")
I am sure we all have at least one of these. An item that is used for many things but was not what the item was made to do. I don’t even know what my item is. It looks like a very long pair of salad tongs. It is three foot long and completly made of wood except for the bolt that holds the two peices together. I want to say it for fireplace log placement but being all wood it would catch fire pretty easily. There are also no ridges between the tongs nor are they curved. It is flat so grabbing a log would be harder than just using a poker of some sort. Well in our house this is known as **The Grabber Thingy**. Its main purpose is to grab things that have fallen behind couches, a dresser or the TV. It is also good when installing new electronics in a TV stand or entertainment center. When you push that speaker wire or electric cord through the little hole in the back The Grabber is used to well grab the wire. This way you don’t have to pull the stand away from the wall. Quite the handy tool. I have no clue what it was initially supposed to do but it works great for our needs. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/2 "2007-12-23T10:25:24Z")
I use my electric leaf blower/vac to assist in mopping the floors. I just throw a bucket of water and cleaner on the tiles, scrub with a stiff broom and then blow the water down the drain with the leaf blower. Cuts the time in half at least. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/3 "2007-12-23T10:28:47Z")
I use a knitting needle to reach into my wood burning stove and mess around with the logs. There’s probably a real tool for that, but using whatever you have handy is the Bulgarian way. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/4 "2007-12-23T10:50:46Z")
My bathroom wastebasket is a Veuve Clicquot champagne bucket. As an aside, I notice an ad currently at the bottom of the page for **Sex Bolts and Binding Posts.** :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![tonedef](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@tonedef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonedef)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/5 "2007-12-23T11:05:02Z")
I used a fork as a back scratcher. ---
**Author:** ![Br\_er\_Lapin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Br\_er\_Lapin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Br_er_Lapin)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/6 "2007-12-23T11:42:53Z")
I apply eye makeup with the same brushes I paint with. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/7 "2007-12-23T11:54:00Z")
I can’t think of any personal examples, but **Kyla’s** Bulgaria comment reminded me of how impressed I was at how inventive the Vietnamese are at this kind of thing. When I was riding a motorcycle there, I caught a flat, so pushed my bike to a little old guy at the side of the road. He hauled out the inner tube using blunted nails to remove the tire. Then he produced a Robe Goldberg contraption he’d made out of a stub of wood, a clamp, and the cylinder out of a car engine. He put rubber and cement over the puncture, then poured gasoline into the cylinder, and lit it. He used the clamp to push the now hot cylinder down onto the piece of wood, and the flat surface and heat “cured” the repair. Another time the selector in my gearbox went and I could only get into first or second gear. Another roadside dude dismantled the gearbox, found a broken spring, and replaced it with one he made on the spot with a pair of tinsnips and a bean can. It worked like a dream. Finally, in the Mekong Delta, there was a guy cruising around in an old US swiftboat (or something like it - a little smaller I think). Where the machine gun had been, he was using the stand to hold and articulate a very long fishing rod. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/8 "2007-12-23T11:54:36Z")
[QUOTE=Br’er Lapin] I apply eye makeup with the same brushes I paint with. [/QUOTE] More information please - that sounds really cool. Unless of course you really are a rabbit. All rabbits do that. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/9 "2007-12-23T12:03:07Z")
I’ve got a synthsiser running off the power unit from a toy train set. My laptop is currently held with the keyboard at my preferred typing angle by the use of two cassette-tape boxes (still containing their tapes). My pupils stare at me in disbelief when I tell them a bank or library card is the key to handwriting music, and I have to demonstrate how it’s a great miniature straightedge, with both horizontal and vertical sides reducing the need for rotation. And so on. I get it from my father. ---
**Author:** ![Br\_er\_Lapin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Br\_er\_Lapin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Br_er_Lapin)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/10 "2007-12-23T12:13:15Z")
[QUOTE=don’t ask] More information please - that sounds really cool. Unless of course you really are a rabbit. All rabbits do that. [/QUOTE] Er… I don’t know? I just found that paintbrushes (the little ones for artistic purposes, not the ones you’d paint walls with, obviously) are really good for applying eyeshadow. ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/11 "2007-12-23T12:19:25Z")
i use an ice cream stick to hold open a book while i read with one hand, with my thumb resting on the stick, holding the book open for easy viewing. it also serves as a bookmark. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/12 "2007-12-23T12:39:57Z")
When the autumn leaves start to cover my lawn, I set my lawn mower on “mulch” and go over the lawn. It grinds up the leaves and feeds the lawn. Of course this doesn’t work so well when the leaves are a foot deep. I use 35mm film canisters to hold just about anything . . . from paint to pins to pills. I have a stand-alone toilet in my studio . . . as a wastebasket. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/13 "2007-12-23T12:46:38Z")
My dear great aunt, aged 88, has a hearing aid and arthritic fingers, which means she drops the little batteries all the time. She has therefore dismantled an in-ear headphone to expose the magnet, and uses this, dangling on the end of the wire, to pick up her misplaced batteries. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/14 "2007-12-23T12:50:05Z")
I once caught my mother-in-law using a Glock to keep her cookbook open. ---
**Author:** ![SomeUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@SomeUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SomeUserName)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/15 "2007-12-23T13:11:41Z")
[QUOTE=Joey P] I once caught my mother-in-law using a Glock to keep her cookbook open. [/QUOTE] :eek: Holy Crap. Was it real or some type of unique paper weight? ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/16 "2007-12-23T13:15:26Z")
[QUOTE=Joey P] I once caught my mother-in-law using a Glock to keep her cookbook open. [/QUOTE] Can we assume that whatever she was cooking was to die for? ---
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/17 "2007-12-23T14:13:50Z")
[QUOTE=Br’er Lapin] Er… I don’t know? I just found that paintbrushes (the little ones for artistic purposes, not the ones you’d paint walls with, obviously) are really good for applying eyeshadow. [/QUOTE] I do that too - buying brushes at the art store is _much_ cheaper than buying them at a makeup counter. And there is a much wider selection. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/18 "2007-12-23T16:06:36Z")
I’ve used apples and oranges as dope pipes. ---
**Author:** ![Auntbeast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/19 "2007-12-23T16:11:01Z")
I use chop sticks to stir my coffee. I even have PRETTY chop sticks to stir my coffee. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012/20 "2007-12-23T16:11:59Z")
I use Q-Tips to clean my ears. The instructions say not to do that. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/items-you-use-that-were-not-its-intended-purpose/431012.md?page=2)