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10. The little pill container with a box for each day of the week.
9. Colanders
8. thermal wraps- the kind you heat in the microwave then velcro in place
7. Mr. Clean Magic Erasers
6. gas grills
5. doggie chew bones
4. bleach
3. vodka
2. earplugs
1. sun visors
The next time you go through a day, doing ordinary activities and using ordinary objects, think about what you’re doing and how your life would change if those things didn’t exist. Looking at my list, I can honestly say my life wouldn’t end if those things went away. I mean, really, doggie bones? However, each item improves the quality of my life enough to make me grateful they exist.
The pill box allows the process of taking my handful of pills every night to be simplified down to a single dumping of the pills into my hand. Without it, I would forget to take my pills, would foam at the mouth and throw things, and generally make everyone around me very unhappy.
I have a big metal colander that I can take to the garden and put fresh picked vegetables in, wash and drain said veggies, drain pasta, rinse aquarium gravel, or wear as a hat to ward off martian radio waves.
I just bought a thermal wrap and I am blissfully in love. I warm it up in the microwave, strap it on my knee or around my back, and do what needs doing without the tether of an electrical cord.
Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are miraculous little things that will get anything off everything, even highly resistant hardwater soapscum that the normal suspects just run away to the library and hide behind mysteries to avoid. Get some.
I used to be an absolute purist when it came to grilling. I didn’t even use charcoal. No. I used WOOD. GOOD WOOD like cherry, plum, and pear. The only problem with that is that I had to start the fire by 3 if we were going to eat by 6. Then, Sweet Daddio let me have the proceeds from the sale of a car, and I purchased a big-arsed 5 burner stainless steel gas grill that weighed 1100 pounds and forced him to reinforce the foundation of our deck. And I’ve never looked back. I can decide at 5:30 that I want to grill something, and it’s ready by 6. Ok…I’m over it. I still have the charcoal grill, for smoking, which I haven’t done ina LONG time, but it’s there just in case.
With 4 dogs, who chew things, rawhide chew bones saved our furniture, and caused many an altercation when one dog decides to try and hog them all. We go through an average 6 chew bones (the ones with the knots on the ends) a week.
Without bleach, my white shirts would be riddled with little mysterious stains, the boys socks would be scuzzy and gross, and Sweet Daddio would have almost nothing to yell at me about.
I don’t think anything needs to be said about vodka.
Earplugs allow me to sleep. I am a ridiculously light sleeper, even when drugged into a stupor by powerful antipsychotics and tranquilizers. Without earplugs Sweet Daddio and I would sleep in different rooms. Even though it feels like someone is sticking their big toes in my ears, I require them.
Sun visors make me look like a Nancy Lopez wanna-be, or a line-dancing retiree at The Villages Florida’s Friendliest Hometown, but they keep the sun out of my eyes whilst driving Little Martha, without causing hathead. When a person has graduated to paying $50 for a haircut, keeping the hair looking artfully windblown rather than mashed down like a $6/hour burger chef is important.
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The downside of Magic Erasers is their fragility. Bend or squeeze too hard, and they tear.
Same could probably be said of me, of course.
Comment by Robert G. April 21, 2006 @ 9:51 am