Mine:
Today I had the bright idea of cleaning the outdoor grill parts in the dishwasher.
Fortunately I was sensible enough not to leave stray dishes in with them.
At the end, there was a pool of black water in the bottom, so I cleaned out the filter of soot and metal scale and started all over on a new cycle.
Now on the third running and the water is still running grey.
There are now black smears on the inside dishwasher door and racks and seals that will take extra work to clean afterwards, as they haven’t come off in three cycles.
I love these things. They usually consist of a few things:
- There must be a (usually mundane) task.
- There must be a “better way”.
- There have to be the tools available
- There has to be a receipt of stupidity.
- At least one person must see this receipt.
My most recent one, which really wasn’t THAT bad…
I was running a pizzeria. They normally make sauce with a bag of spices, two cans of tomato paste, and 4 buckets of water. That’s all grand, but it takes some time to get the mixing done well. “Isn’t there a better way?” I’d tell myself.
This pizzeria makes their own dough. They add the yeast in the water, let it proof, add flour to the mixture along with some olive oil and put it in a mixer.
A mixer. A big mixer. (Technically, a VCM, or, Vertical Cutting Machine, but I called it a SCM, or, Sideways Cement Mixer)
Why can’t we load two or three batches of sauce and all their yummy components in the SCM and let 'er rip?
Rip, we did indeed do.
It did the trick. It worked fast. It worked good. It was even consistent.
It wasn’t designed to pour liquids, though. It made a mess. We put down newspaper, because the little bit of waste and cleanup was worth the time that would have normally been spent mixing it missionary style. The head of the company’s sector saw me do it once, laughed, and said it was a great idea, but I definitely shouldn’t do it when anyone else higher up comes into the store.
I just hosted a Kids’ Night Out (movie, popcorn, faux Kool-Aid, etc.). I was in charge of making and scooping popcorn out of the big ol’ machine, and by the end of the night, there was at least 4 cups of popcorn on the floor and canola oil and salt all over the table. The popcorn was really good, though.
A new mess today.
Lesson learned: Never use a Dustbuster to pick up spilled coffee grounds (dry, spilled from the bag).
They are so light weight that they do not fall into the collection bucket, but fly directly out the exhaust fins and all over the room!
My personal finances. 'Nuff said.
I guess I’m nearly alone here, but this must be my week for unthinking mess making.
The vent tube out of my dryer sprung a leak and I replace it. I used the shop vac to pick up all the lint that had been dumping behind the machine. So it clogged its filter.
I decided that the easy way to clean the filter was to remove it and blow it out from the inside using the vac’s exhaust hose blower. Did this outside of course, and though the dust would go into the trash, but still there was huge cloud of lint that covered the whole area. So I had to re-vacuum that up before it got damp and hardened as motley felt.
I’m still working on sorting my bookshelves. It’ll get done in the next century or so.
My darling Marcie talked me into buying a desk and two vertical bookcases.* They are to be delivered the day after Christmas. They have to be hauled up to the second floor of our townhouse. I have to assemble them. First, I have to remove ALL the books from an eight foot long, two-shelved horizontal oak bookcase. Obviously I have to find a place to store those books and then I have to manage to get the horizontal bookcase down a 27 riser stairway. Getting it down the stairs will require moving an ornate antique chest of drawers from the second floor landing and into the master bedroom. Then I have to move a solid oak entertainment center, which will force me to run new speaker wire to the new locations of the five speakers. After the desk and bookcases are assembled I will have to put them in place at least three times before Marcie will be satisfied and then I will have to move a sleeper sofa and an octagonal oak end table; the end table will almost certainly have to be moved downstairs. What really hurts is that the desk was an afterthought; the primary objects of desire were the bookcases. I got myself into this mess by saying “okay” to buying the damn things. I wish all I had to do was sort the bookcase we already have.
*She said she wanted them, which is all it ever takes.
Well, I’ll see your “my personal finances,”* and I’ll raise you my current semester.* Oh, and my sex life*, for which I dutifully say Kaddish every Shabbat. Now, 'nuff said! 
*Yeah, good times, folks, good times.
Yeah, that’s kind of my trouble too. Our budget is pretty tight. I changed jobs on October 1 and had to pay back tuition reimbursement from spring semester, and it set me back. My father-in-law died at the end of October, and my wife was spending all her free time with him while he was in the hospital, for 5 weeks I was trying to work my new (and very demanding) job, take care of my kids, run my household because my wife was distraught, and squeeze in study time for two night classes. Can you guess my lowest priority? I don’t have money to pay for next semester, and if I don’t get tuition reimbursement I can’t take classes. If I don’t take classes, my student loans come out of deferrment, and I don’t have money in my budget to pay that. I’m screwed right now, and I think it’s about to get a little worse.
Shit.
Well, we’ll get through it. We always do. And so will you. Hang in there. 
I am very sorry to hear about your FIL (my condolences to all), and about all of your other troubles. You know what, though? You’re right–we *will * get through it, and it’s gonna be alright. Y’know–eventually, even if we can’t yet see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Peace, man.
We were going to sell the condo and move.
So we packed up about 1/4 of our stuff for storage, and took another 1/4 or more out and spread it around while trying to make the keep/throw away decisions.
Then the move got called off…thank goodness.
We lost momentum on wanting to finish sorting/throwing away.
Then the wife got the idea of reorganizing the living space in every room. She’ll feel better once we’ve done it. But the sorting stuff is all in the way…
At this point, a queen-sized bed frame she ordered for delivery in a few weeks arrived, unexpectedly early.
We’ve been up at midnight or one AM every night, work nights included, struggling with junk that’s like one of those sliding-square puzzzles with one opening – we have to move A to B to make room to move C so we can reposition D. The living room is a winding narrow lane through piles of boxes and stuff; the computer room was rearranged last night, but she doesn’t like it – new re-rearranging tonight. The huge bedframe box is leaning against the dining room table, which is buried under stuff.
Oh, and I have to plan her birthday. She’s hoping to have people over. In a few days, no less.
Sailboat
Wow, Beware of Doug, it’s *so * nice to see that I’m not the only one who believes in wearing a proper chapeau, even though I don’t practice so much these days since I’m going through a rather protracted dress-down-everyday stage. I am, nonetheless, impressed. (Even if I did cringe at seeing your hats arranged that way, stacked one on top of the other). :eek: 
And if you think you’re bad…well, I tend to wash clothes, fold them, bring them home from the laundromat, dump them in the open suitcase that’s on my bedroom floor ('cause I need to use my laundry bag as a hamper–yeah, I wash that, too), and pick and choose from there. Then again, I have absolute shit for closet space, and I haven’t had for years (and can’t currently afford) a decent armoire.
P.S.: Two words, man. Shoe trees.