Been there, done that. The reverse, actually. Several times I’ve tried to shut off my Rogue by hitting the Heater button.
I once got a couple chainsaw chain blades back from a local shop that sharpened them for me, put one on the chainsaw and tried to start cutting up logs. What the…it was way more dull than it was before it got sharpened-- it wouldn’t cut at all! I was about to make an angry call to the place that sharpened the chains, but decided to take a closer look first. Yep, I had put the chain on backwards.
This was quite some time ago but I am reminded of it due to encountering the situation yesterday.
I grew up using baking soda to clean up battery leaks in devices. It took a remarkable number of years to realize that I had needed to switch to vinegar to clean up alkaline battery leaks.
This was many years ago but I still use it as an example to remind myself that I will never win a Nobel prize.
My car was in the shop so I had a rental. My youngest had left their backpack in the rear seat of the rental so I was tasked to get it to school.
I drove there, parked, and flipped the front seat forward to retrieve the backpack. Space was pretty tight. I then slid the front seat as far forward as it would go to allow easier access. There was still not much room for my torso between the seat back and the car’s pillar.
So, squeezing and contorting my body, I cursed and vowed I would never own this make of vehicle. Who in the hell designed it to be like this, anyway?
After more curse words and some discomfort, I snagged the backpack and brought it to the school office. Walking back to the vehicle I happened to notice that the car was a four-door.
mmm
context: in large parts of the world there is Maggi or Knorr soup (think: dehydrated soup-powder in an “evelope”)
generic pic:
The way I cook it:
- put soup-powder in the pan
- dispose of the empty envelope in the trash
- turn on heater element of the kitchen-range
- fish the crumbled up envelope out of the trash to read up how much water is to be added
- put the indicated amount of water onto the s-powder…
every.single.time.
Brother from another mother! Me, too. Every. Single. Time.
I did worse than that - I just about tore my earlobe off with a pry bar!
It was July 4 and we’d had the city deliver a dumpster to our driveway that week so we could clean some junk out of the basement. We had a big old oak TV cabinet in the basement that I was taking apart because I wasn’t going to try to carry the thing upstairs in one piece.
At one point I was trying to pry the front off the cabinet but had to stick my head under a cross piece to see what I was doing. The prybar slipped and bounced back and whacked me on the side of the head. It took me a minute to realize that it had put a huge gash in my right earlobe and it was bleeding profusely. I went upstairs to clean it out and try to get the bleeding to stop, then had my wife look at it and she said “Wow, that’s pretty deep.”
She wound up driving me to the local urgent care so I could see if it needed stitches. The nurse said “It’s pretty deep, but not deep enough for stitches.” I joked “Oh, so I should have hit myself harder?” They gave me a tetanus shot, put a bandage on my ear, prescribed some antibiotics and sent me on my way.
On the plus side, I was a trend-setter – a couple of weeks later a certain presidential candidate also started wearing a bandage on his ear!
My d’oh moment today was when I was making my oatmeal for breakfast. I usually put some raisins and nuts in about halfway through microwaving, but today I decided to do something different and put in blueberries instead. I learned the hard way that you put the blueberries in last, after the microwaving is done. Yikes what a mess.
We bought a countertop ice maker (Samsung fridge, notorious for the built-in icemaker failing, ours has been repaired twice and still does not work).
There’s a plug in the bottom to allow you to drain the water out for cleaning.
The first time I filled it after cleaning, I forgot to put in the drain plug.
Another household member did the same thing, later on.
At my first job after college, in 1993: my office had a drop ceiling, and there was a 24" X 48" fluorescent light fixture in it. One of the bulbs burned out. Instead of calling maintenance, I decided to change it myself.
I got a ladder, climbed up, and proceeded to remove the 24" X 48" plastic bezel/diffuser. Was gently bending it, trying to get it out. It was really difficult, because I didn’t want to break the diffuser. I finally got it out after about 15 minutes.
It was then that I noticed two, small latches on the metal frame of the cover. I unlatched them and the entire cover swung down on hinges. Huh.
Well guess what? Today when temperatures in Minneapolis are in the single digits, power cycling the garage did NOT reset the door opening unit. First I had to manually open and close the garage door (after having to get on a ladder because the cord to pull the manual release had broken off) to get to the supermarket until I could deal with the door later. Then I had to climb up to the unit to do the full reset procedure of pushing the keying button and then triggering the remote. I’m getting too old for this.
This is why we put a paper plate on top of anything we microwave that could either splash or explode.
Let’s just say that boats float better if you put the drain plug in.
I did put a paper towel over the top, more just to keep it from splattering, but it just got soaked when the oatmeal bubbled over.
From now on I’ll just stick with my raisins and nuts. I know exactly how long I can cook it without making a mess. The blueberries totally threw me off my oatmeal game. I’ll save the blueberries for muffins.
I always use something like this. Keeps the microwave clean:
Hey, don’t feel too bad. When I owned an old runabout I joined a boating forum for maintenance and repair advice. The oft-repeated saying there was “there are two types of boat owners: those who’ve forgotten to put in the drain plug before launching, and those who say they’ve never forgotten to, but are lying”.
I once mistakenly ate 7 pats of butter at a hotel conference thinking they were cheese. To be fair they did not have the little bit of white cardboard identifying them as such and they were placed right beside the huge salad bowl.
Why 7 you ask?
I was mystified at the taste and was trying to figure out exactly what kind of cheese it was.
I will never live this down as long as I am at work.
Again, I don’t find this all that embarrassing. Cheese and butter both come from the same source ingredient.
“Hmmm, what is this- a very young Gouda, perhaps? I like the creamy, almost buttery mouthfeel; but the flavor, though strong in dairy notes, leaves a little to be desired. It could benefit from more of the sharpness that comes from proper aging”.
Thank you!
Exactly my thinking. I was pondering if it was some kind of mild farmer cheese but just couldn’t nail it down lol.
Mileage notebook? Whatever for?
The one situation in which I do keep track of mileage is when I use my personal vehicle for work-related travel—not commuting to work, but when I go to an off-site meeting or project site. Anyway, I just take a picture of the odometer with my phone, which is location-, time-, and date-stamped.