Clean an expensive paint brush as soon as you’re done with it.
Never start projects on any critical house or car components on a Sunday afternoon. You may think something like draining the sediment from the hot water heater will be quick and easy, but you may learn that the sediment can clog up the drain valve so it won’t close and you may have to race to the hardware store before it closes and spend the evening installing a new drain valve.
If you have several six packs of warm beer, don’t pour a couple of inches of liquid nitrogen into a cooler and stand all the bottles up in the cooler.
Must remember that one. 
There are tasks that you think will take hours and hours, so you keep putting them off. When you finally get around to doing one of them, it takes a mere fraction of the amount of time you thought it would. Sometimes only minutes.
There are other tasks that you think will take only a few minutes to an hour or so, and those actually take many hours, even many days or weeks.
All computer-related tasks fall into the second group.
It’s not that bad in my case, I know both ways, but on a related note, my advice for IT folks is:
“My Internet is down” can mean everything from a loose cable to global thermonuclear war, and everything in between. Anyway, always first check the cables.
And reboot, whether it’s your computer or your phone. Amazing how many people do this as a last resort instead of first thing.
Yes, and you will be deemed to be at fault (at least in Massachusetts) and your annual insurance premium will go up by $350.
Which reminds me of when I was a teen and left stuff lying on the floor. If asked why I left it on the floor, I would explain: it can’t fall off.
j
can someone explain this to me?
Corollary: don’t lean your skis anywhere if there are other skis already leaning. Guaranteed that someone (possibly you) will start a ski domino cascade. I saw a teammate on our high school XC ski team knock over like 50 pairs of skis at a meet.
I believe that the dry noodle piece can be quite similar to a splinter and a splinter under a nail is particularly painful.
So, you don’t want to learn the hard way, eh?
To elaborate on my own misfortune with this lesson…squeamish do not read on…
While a wood splinter is pretty close as an equivalent, the dried angel hair pasta will not hold together when you try to pull it out from under your nail. Nooo. It will break, leaving behind a nice piece that you can see under your nail, but have no way to extract. Hoping for the best, whatever that may be, after a few days (!) the noodle starts to putrefy and now an infection is brewing and the thumb is swelling. One way to drain the pus is to, ya know, poke a hole thru the fingernail using a hot needle (!!). Thankfully, that last maneuver was successful and I avoided further infection, while learning a valuable life lesson!
Cleaning Knives etc. in the Kitchen
I try to arrange it such that whomever starts the job, finishes the job. Dishwasher loader also unloads, washing up the the sink, ditto. Fewer “traps” and surprises that way.
When Backing Up in a Parking Lot
Precisely because of large trucks blocking sightlines, and idiots driving so fast people can’t detect them until too late, I have what I call the “5-second rule.” If I look one way, then the other, and the coast is clear, I allow myself to back up a little bit. Then stop and look again, because your idea about where the traffic is can only last for 5 seconds, after which the situation will have totally changed. Oh, but on the busy West or East coasts, I would revise this to “3-second rule” thanks to increased congestion.
Sailing
I read in a sailing humor article that when you are loading groceries from the pier to your boat, you learn to tell what fell off the dock and into the water by the sound of the splash it makes. I became fairly good at this: Ker-plunk! Was that an orange or a can of beans? Pash. Uh oh, the lettuce fell in…
Winch handles make a remarkably subtle, yet expensive ‘bloop’ sound.
Learn to back-in park when you park perpendicularly. Thankfully, I never had to learn the hard way, but there were a few close calls. I’m always surprised how few people do this and how much easier it is.
Do not store the bottles of Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce next to each other in the refrigerator door and not check to see what bottle you grabbed before blindly shaking the contents into the soup you are cooking.
Advice from an old farmer-
If you drop your gum in the chicken coop don’t bother picking up gum looking pieces hoping to find yours.
Just 'cuse the cow pie looks dry enough to step on it may not be.
(Backing up into parking.) I agree, but this “debate” has been going on on the board for… decades. Kinda like the toilet-paper-roll-orientation controversy. Random examples from GQ and from The Pit.
That’s part of the charm of this place. The really important issues never get settled. That way we live to discuss another day.