Intro for my e-book,  Ooops! Memoirs of Cat Lovin' Home-Repair Addict, available for only $2.50 at Lulu.com! I will post a new essay from the book each week.

 

“He Was a Happy Man With a Batch of Cement”

    “He Was a Happy Man With a Batch of Cement.” Those words from Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman” really rang home when I reread the play recently. Why? Because I can completely relate to Willy, the salesman who was constantly trying to live up to others’ standards of success. He spent his work hours in misery, trying to feel good about something he didn’t really feel good about. But what he really enjoyed, did well and took some pride in, was his ability to do home renovations.

    I have found myself, to an extent, in the same position. I’ve been able to find fulfilling jobs in writing and teaching over the years, but I think I may have gained the greatest amount of satisfaction from home repair projects I have tackled since moving into this house over 15 years ago.

    If you had asked me before that, if I wanted to spend my time renovating a house, I would have been at a loss for words. It never really entered my mind. But when I tried to make some extra money selling real estate and happened upon this poor neglected house hidden among the trees, and at a price even I could afford ($18,500), I was hooked.

    When I moved into this house it had been abandoned, apparently quite suddenly, by a renter several years before. She had neglected to clean the food from the refrigerator or even take out the 20-some bags of trash she left rotting in the basement. The tiles were popping up off the kitchen floor from many winters with no heat, and the refrigerator was full of maggots, but the rest …. well, aside from the rock wall near the driveway, which magically fell down a week before I moved in, the rest wasn’t in such bad shape. It was just in need of a little sprucing up and painting. But I also had some remodeling ideas of my own.

    With all of its faults, and possibly because of them, since I began renovating this house, I have felt consumed by it, drawn to it, inspired by it, sometimes enslaved by it, and often frustrated. But at the end of the day, when I’ve torn something apart or put something together and I sit back, sweaty, sore and sometimes even a bit bloodied and look at my results, I feel I have really accomplished something.

    This feeling of accomplishment and peace can only be equaled by the more gradual accomplishments of nurturing a garden to full maturity or gaining the love and trust of a cat.

    I see gardening as part of home improvement and have included gardening stories in this book as well. The garden, like the house, is something I’ve put a part of my life into. Every flower that blooms in the summer has a different memory of either the person who gave me the “start” on it, or the dear friend who often mowed them down when trying to be helpful.

    My cats have very little to do with accomplishing home improvement projects, mind you, but they do play a part, as it is a constant challenge to herd them from one room to another so that I can work without having tail brush strokes added to my painting projects or footprints in the tile glue. In addition, I’ve designed much of my house with the cats in mind, from building a catatarium with tiny doors in my walls that lead to it,  to making extra wide windowsills for cat meditation areas (and fly stalking). So, much to the chagrin of cat haters, and hopefully to delight cat lovers, my cats will sometimes appear in these stories as well.

    Because of this house I have spent vacations on top of my roof, removing shingles with everything from a snow shovel to a crowbar, or mixing cement with the kitchen spatula and spreading sealer on the driveway with that same spatula. Many home repair tools are advertised as the best thing since … uh … since sliced-individually-wrapped-processed-cheese-flavored-vegetable oil squares. But I’m a use-what-you’ve-got kinda gal, who refuses to believe that utensils need to be limited to what their names imply. Anything can be a tool and whatever fits in that crack I’m trying to pry apart, or spreads the paint on the floor (kitchen mop?) is open season in my opinion. If it works, use it.

     I offer this book not necessarily as a how-to guide, but as proof that we can all do many small renovation projects ourselves. However, they may not turn out as perfect as those on HGTV, they will undoubtedly take three to four times longer to do, and you will inevitably have to stop and take numerous trips back and forth to the hardware store for parts.

     So why do we take on these projects?  I say “We,”  because anyone who reads this must be a kindred spirit and surely we must learn to see ourselves as a united force: Those who shun the expense of paying an expert, those who enjoy coming up with something a little different from the ordinary, the few , the proud, the incredibly cheap (or poor), but rich with ideas.

    We convince ourselves that we do these things out of necessity because we can’t afford to pay an expert, but we appreciate what we are able to achieve ourselves, and in essence, the act of creating. Never mind the fact that beams aren’t quite plumb, or that a doorway looks more like a teepee than a rectangle. If the door functions, who cares? Forget that you can’t afford the products specified for the task at hand. If you happen to be out of spackling, but have some fat-free sour cream in the fridge, why not use it to fill those nail holes? Have you noticed how it hardens when you leave a bit smeared on your countertops?

    When I’m engaged in a home improvement project, I find it is the time when my imagination soars. I had a friend who helped me out for a summer, and we would sit on the porch after a long day of sweating on the rooftop and bask in the feeling of accomplishment, counting our cuts and bruises, or the new splotches of paint on our paintin’ jeans. He was a talker and I am not, so he would provide me with a long and constant narrative of life’s trials and tribulations, as well as its wonders, and I would sit there, half listening, while at the same time looking around at my surroundings and dreaming of future projects. “I can’t figure out why my telephone bill is so high,” he would say, and I would respond with, “Wouldn’t it be neat to put a gazebo on top of my house?”

    Home improvement is exhilarating, but also frustrating, and definitely addictive. How many early books and stories were written about houses that have consumed the people who owned them? “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “A Rose for Emily,” “The Haunting of Hill House”… Surely this is not a new addiction, but merely one that has been rediscovered with the disintegration of houses made in the times those stories were written.

    I sometimes identify with the Fall of the House of Usher when I find that I have both literally and figuratively painted myself into a corner, having run out of energy, tired of finding that things just don’t work the way I thought they would and redoing them again and again. But anyone who has spent time renovating a house knows that houses are more than structures for living in; they are living things in themselves. They are full of memories, and a reflection of one’s personality. A reflection we may have never even noticed before.

    This book is a compilation of writings about specific episodes in this journey through the land of home repair, as well as a few reflective essays on the meaning behind all of this madness.

 

I’ve been seeing life through kitten eyes

Note: I wrote this column when my cats, Pumba and Powder, were tiny kittens. Now they are 14 years old.

Lately I’ve been seeing life through kitten’s eyes.
While cats of all ages are known for their curiosity, I’ve noticed through watching my kittens, Pumba and Powder, that those first months of life are full of endlessly fascinating experiences.
Each of my potted plants is a new jungle to explore and hide in while hoping to ambush the other and each level of chair or table that they find themselves able to climb is a new conquest.
There are things that are scary … like those birds at the feeder that fill grown cats with a compulsion to attack. To a small kitten these sparrows and tufted titmice are huge eagles swooping down at them. Powder was sitting on the window sill when a bird came soaring in for a landing at the feeder outside the window. Powder hasn’t quite figured out that things can’t come through the window pain, so when he saw those birds coming toward him, he jumped down from the window sill and scurried into the other room sliding to a stop against the far wall.
The sound of the vacuum cleaner also causes little feet to scurry so fast that they are running in place as they slip and slide on the linoleum. Blow dryers too, are a disturbance, but not quite so urgent. They glance with worried looks at the source of the noise and cautiously back away, eyes wide. And if I blow my nose it sounds to them like a hiss from a very large cat, so they both take off running in the other direction...
Some experiences probably seem like brushes with death to a kitten. Like that little slip of the foot Pumba made when walking around the toilet seat, then caught himself and hung two inches from the water below.
But you’d never know it when he is off jumping on Powder’s tail the next moment. No dwelling on bad memories for a kitten. There is too much to see! Too much to do! Like whenever I come home from work and stand behind my wicker dressing screen to change and hang my discarded clothes over the top. Pumba quickly climbs the screen, grabs my bra and runs through the house with it. It was fun the first time he did it, so now he does it habitually, every evening.
I’ve determined that the game “Follow the Leader” was not an idea originated by human beings. The kittens will continuously follow each other, taking the same path over and over, round and round.
Kitten thoughts: First we jump on the stereo, then we climb in the plant, then spread some potting soil on the floor and run across the room. Don’t forget to step on Mom’s face as you cross over the couch. There is a penalty if you don’t. Now let’s do it over again … back to the stereo, then the plant …
And as many who own cats know, a kitten will feel an unexplainable need to be in a different room all of the sudden. Who knows what those little brains are thinking when those eyes begin to dart around the room wildly before a kitten jumps up and races into another room, skids to a stop a the wall, scrambles his little claws against the floor and takes off in yet another direction.
Kitten thoughts: Whoops, I think I’m missing something that is going on in there!”
or “I just realized I’m bored in here. I need a change and fast!
Are they being chased by ghosts? Are they practicing their hunting skills for sneaking up and suddenly dashing for the attack? Are they getting back to their roots and imagining themselves to be large powerful Cheetahs sprinting at a speed of 60 mph across the plains of Africa?
But they aren’t huge Cheetahs. They aren’t even grown cats. They are tiny fluffballs with tails and claws, which makes this activity particularly endearing to me. I could watch them run for hours with their little ears held back to streamline their bodies and reduce the windforce from traveling at such speeds, or at least the speeds at which they think they are running.
And then there’s that perpetual nursing instinct that Pumba has yet to shake.
I can see his little mind working as he stops playing with Powder, looks me straight in the ear and starts walking determinedly toward me.
Kitten thoughts: I miss my mommy, I miss my mommy! Why did you take me away from my mommy at the shelter. Mommy gave me milk too. I want milk, I miss milk, I think there may be some milk in that earlobe up there. Okay, you’re my mommy now, roll over and give me an earlobe.
Because I have a particular sensitivity about the idea of youngsters losing their mommies, I decided to go ahead and let him suck on my earlobe for comfort. Each night, after I lie down, he perches on my shoulder and sucks on my earlobe until he is consumed with sleepiness, then he lets out a long moan and passes out with his nose pink and wet from the workout. BBBut if I lift my head or move in any fashion, he immediately wakes, grabs onto that earlobe and starts sucking again. I’m not sure if he’ll ever realize there is no milk to be had in that earlobe.
But life is full of adventures yet to come, like paper bags to hide in and closets to explore, or analyzing the moth that strayed in through the window.
Kitten thoughts: Ooooh, look at the thing flittering around -- oops, missed ---- ah, got him in my claws, now lets try tasting this new delicacy …. Hmmm, kinda fuzzy.

Annual trip to the vet brings hisses and other bad cat language

If cats could swear I think I would have gotten an earful Saturday.
It was time for their annual trip to the vet for their vaccines and you should have heard the language Pumba and Powder used before, during and after their visit.
First, of course, was the point at which their ESP kicked in at home, just before we left.
I thought I’d be sneaky this time and put them in the car long before I got out the dreaded cat carrier. See, I figure it is the cat carrier that tips them off. Usually I put them in it, carry them out to the car, then bring a litter box and set it in the car, then let them out of the carrier so they can see where we are going, in hopes that they won’t get quite so nervous or be so cramped by staying in that carrier the whole way.
This time, I thought, “I’ll put the litter box in the car first (because fear tends to upset Pumba’s bowels), then I’ll pick up each cat separately, put each in the car, then put the carrier in the car last, so they wouldn’t be tipped off by the sight of it. But I guess they were tipped off when they saw me taking the litter box to the car. By the time I got back in the house, Pumba, the more clingy and affectionate of the two, who always wants to be around me, was mysteriously missing. As I suspected, he had climbed up in the top of a closet and all that could be seen was his glowing yellow eyes and little mustached nose peeking over a stack of sheets.
I reached up and picked him up, and he was strangely silent. No hello meow, no mommy-give-me-a-kiss murmur; just fearful silence. Somehow, he knew what was to come. It wasn’t until Powder and Pumba were both in the car that the language began; “Meoooooowwwwwww,” Meeeooooowwwwwww,” all the way to the vet’s office as I tried to sing along to one of my tapes to comfort them ... or me.
I could only imagine that if they spoke English they would have been yelling, “Where are you taking us? This is scary! We’re not used to this! The last time this happened we were poked with needles! You think we don’t remember? Why are you doing this? I thought you loved us!”
Yes, it’s just like trying to explain to a two-year old child, why he needs his flu shot and why you are indirectly inflicting pain when he did nothing wrong.
But when we got into the vet’s office it was another story - total silence and they huddled in their carrier with eyes glazed over with fear. Well, maybe an officasional hiss or growl at a curious dog sniffing their cage. Yes, cats growl too. It’s just higher pitched and further down in the throat.
Then, as he got his shot, Pumba’s language got a little bit naughtier and a little big naughtier: I imagine it was something like, “I’ll get you for this you *&^$ You think this is good for me? I’ll show you good! Look at these teeth! Look at these claws! How’d you like to be poked with them?”
Oh, the heartbreak of our language barrier. Why can’t I help them understand?
Afterwards, I cuddled Pumba in my arms while Powder got his shot, and Pumba continued to protest with low dissatisfied murmurs. “Hey Powder, watch out! It hurts!”
And Powder, well, he showed some teeth and hissed a little, but then it was over and he climbed back into the carrier on his own. He’s not the dramatic type like Pumba.
Then, at last, we were off on our way down the road again, me singing to my tape, them howling along, “Meeeeoooowwwww, meeeeooooowwww …. Why are we in this darned moving thing again? Where are you taking us now? When are we gonna get home?”
Thankfully, once we were back in the familiar environment of home they were both as loving as could be, and the only sounds I heard were the little murmurs and coos they make when they want affection. Now there is the one part of their language I completely understand.

Warning: Having cats loose in the car can cause accidents if they get down around your feet while you are driving. It’s hard to slam on the brakes if you’re afraid you might squash a cat.

The purrrpetrators go through adolescence

Ahhhhh, at last, Pumba sprawled across me while I was watching television the other day and snoozed with his bearded little chin pointed to the ceiling.
It was a rare occurrence that he should do that without the ulterior motive of. sucking on my earlobe until passing out from exhaustion with his nose pink and wet from the workout.
Yes, he seems to be calming down a little in his old age (he should be year old next month) and doesn’t feel quite the obsessive oral fixation that he did as a kitten. Although he hasn’t stopped that ear sucking thing completely and I still have a sore spot on the back of my ear from his teeth.
Powder too, decided to take a snooze on top of me the other day, eyes squinted shut, slow soft breaths on my ear, and he didn’t even use his claws to knead my head like a loaf of bread.
I guess cats go through stages just like children. Those first few months are like the terrible twos when children can’t stay out of anything and must be running all of the time. Now my boys are hitting adolescence. They still enjoy acting like kids, but they also take time to act like adults and slow down to smell the cat food and reflect on the purrrrrpose of life.
But ya know … it seems like all cats get rowdier in the morning than any other time. Maybe it’s because morning isn’t really morning for them. It’s just a time after one of 15 or 20 naps they have taken that day.
But for me, morning is just what is sounds like … “mourning.” It’s time to mourn the end of another wonderful night of sleep. It’s like being a newborn baby suddenly dropped out of that nice warm enveloping liquid into a cold and wicked world and then smacked on the behind to add insult to injury.
All of the cats I’ve had in my life have found their own unique way to wake me in the morning, but I must admit, all of these methods seem much more preferable to the sound of that infernal buzzing alarm clock.
Pudha, my first cat, used to pat my eyelids with her paws, then, that failing, would gently pick at the tip of my nose with her claws. Duphous, my true love for 15 years after Pudha passed away, had a more subtle method of lying on the pillow above my head and casually tossing her tail onto my face. Although, a few times she knocked the water glass of the bureau beside my bed and drenched me. One time she was so upset because I was too tired to wake up and feed her that she peed on my leg. She brought a very literal meaning to the term. pissed off.
Now Powder will do that kneading thing when really desperate, but usually leaves it all up to Pumba. And since I’ve gotten a slow-leaking waterbed – a source of endless fascination for him-Pumba has invented the Waterbed Prance to wake me in the morning. It’s new dance to the squish, squish rhythm of the sloshing water. Pumba will crouch and stare intently at a spot on the bed, then suddenly dive for it, lunging into the mattress then riding the waves like a surfer. Then he’ll turn around, set his sights on another spot, run across the bed and pounce again.
I’ve never been awake enough to count, but I’d estimate that Pumba does at least 15 laps back and forth across the bed each morning.
The other morning after his little workout, he followed me into the bathroom and jumped from the window sill onto the shower curtain rod. He was hanging by his front paws until I reached up and saved him. Why can’t I wake up in the morning with an incredible desire to bounce all over my bed and make little chirp-like purring sounds?
Why is it that I drag myself into the bathroom and sit on the bathroom floor in front of the heater while slurping down my first cup of coffee before I can even drag my body over the edge of the tub to bathe, when Pumba has already done 15 laps across the bed and is ready to swing from the shower rod?
Maybe I need to take more cat naps.

Ooops! I forgot to read the directions!

One problem that I have with home repair projects is wanting to toss aside directions, rip open a package and just cut to the chase when starting a new home repair project. As my eyes get worse and the type font for directions on most packages gets smaller, this problem is getting worse.
It wasn’t until after I had my arms submerged in concrete up to my elbows in an attempt to mix it like bread dough, that I read the warnings about exposure to concrete having some carcinogenic effects. So I sat down, smoked a cigarette and contemplated the seriousness of the warning.
I must admit I tend to get rather careless in my zeal. As I described to my doctor the mass
of old wasps nests and other indiscernible matter that I scooped from inside a wall I was repairing, she said “You do use a mask when you are doing these things don’t you?” I gave her the “I should have had a V8” look, doing all but smacking myself on the forehead and exclaimed, “Hey that’s a good idea.” Her look was more like that of Dorothy on the “Golden Girls,” right after Rose had told the story of how her great Uncle Fruckenfroken was the ring leader of a Salmon circus in St. Olaf. In case you never saw the episode, the Salmon juggled tiny ginsu knives but sometimes accidentally filleted themselves.
Another fun incident I had regarding the ignoring of directions was when I first used that great stuff called Great Stuff, and neglected to read the part on the side of the can that said to wear gloves while handling it. For those who don’t know, it’s a squirtable expanding sealant for filling cracks and such.
First I tried gently pushing the trigger and squirting the expanding foam into the cracks, but it is like trying to get a cat into its carrier on the day it needs to go to the vet. The foam scatters in all directions! So I began smearing it into the cracks with my hands, until my hands were covered and I suddenly realized it was really sticky! Holding my fingers extended to avoid touching the ladder, I made my way down to the ground and rubbed my sticky fingers in the grass to clean them off. Big Mistake.
Now I had sticky hands covered in pieces of grass. I felt like Edward Scissorhands as the
long strands protruded from the end of each finger and I was unable to close my hands for fear they’d be permanently clenched together. I ended up in my bathroom using all of the carcinogenic cleansers I could find in order to scrub it off. Some of it took a couple of days to wear off.
Sticky things in general seem to have been my biggest challenges. Once, I decided to buy one of those mousetraps that is a sticky pad. I’m not sure why I even bought it, because the idea of finding some poor mouse dead and frozen forever in position just sends chills up my spine.
But this time it wasn’t me who neglected to follow the directions; it was my cat, Powder. Just as I’d peeled the back off and exposed the sticky side, Powder decided to jump up on the counter and see if it was food I was opening. Not having read the directions that indicated that cat’s tails are just as capable of being grasped in its clutches as mouse feet, Powder promptly gave me the “I want food” tail swish and the excitement began.
One swish caught his tail on the sticky pad and another swish of terrified surprise connected the same sticky pad to a bag of chips I had sitting on the counter. Before I knew it Powder was racing through the house with a mouse trap and a bag of chips rattling behind him and the chips they were a flyin’!
I ended up chasing him around the house with a pair of scissors to cut it off with, while hollering “Powder … Powder …You really should have read the directions.”

The joy of being a truck drivin' woman

Anyone who is into home improvement either has a truck, or often dreams about it. Trucks can be useful for hauling lumber, mulch, and many other things. I had a big huge Suburban for a short time, but as with many other used vehicles I have purchased over the years, after owning it for a few months, I found myself sitting on the side of the road in the dead of winter, with steam pouring from under the hood as I waited for the tow truck to move the monstrosity back to my house, where I would stick a For Sale sign on it and wait to pass it along to the next sucker.
But before it broke I had the pleasure of filling it with tons of shingles I tore off my roof and then hauling them to the landfill – where, as is my way, I ended up seeing things I wanted to take home with me … things that might be able to be used for something some day. A great lattice fence was lying there and I went over to grab it from a stack of things set to one side, when the guy who works there drove over on his backhoe and yelled, “Hey, you can’t have that. It’s mine.”
Ahhh, I never thought I would, but I was actually experiencing landfill worker envy, thinking of all the free stuff he’s probably gathered over the years, the artistic things he can do with all that junk!
But back to the truck. I also had the opportunity of using it to haul massive amounts of mulch for my garden. And when I left it in the back of the Suburban for several days until steam filled the windows, I was inspired to do some Googling and find out about the possibilities of mulch spontaneously combusting. (It can happen!)
But, once again, back to the truck. I wrote the following column during those first exciting weeks before the truck began having problems with the water heater … which I should have fixed, before it over heated and locked up the engine.

Truck Drivin’ Woman Feels the Power
I’ve experienced a new feeling of power lately: the power of driving a truck. I found a really good deal on an old ’79 Suburban recently. I got it for $500 and it’s a huge Jed-Clampett-looking thing, with a hard top and windows in the back, and the color that isn’t rust is dark blue.
In the last few weeks I’ve finally had the chance to do some real hauling. While I still have my little Dodge Omni for day-to-day driving, maneuvering the Suburban out to get loads of mulch, building materials, bags of cement and other sundries has given me a whole new attitude.
You see, when you drive a compact vehicle like my Omni, you always have the feeling that if someone bigger runs into you you’ve just about had it. I mean, my last accident was a chain reaction at a stoplight. The van behind me and the pickup truck in front of me didn’t get a scratch, while the entire front of my car got totaled.
But this is not a concern when I’m driving this monstrous Suburban: a vehicle that is larger than your average pickup truck, a vehicle I have to climb to get into, a vehicle that makes me taller than almost all of the other drivers on the road.
When I first got behind the wheel of my Suburban, I was amazed at the view from up there. Everything was a lot smaller down on the ground and I could see down into people’s cars and see everything, and I mean everything, they were doing. It was pretty cool! Don’t be trying to straighten your underwear at stoplights! I can see it all!
I was a little nervous at first though. I was afraid for the others. I wasn’t sure if I could judge distance properly, and I didn’t want to sideswipe anyone.
So, I must admit, my doubts were reaffirmed as someone in Lowe’s parking lot began pointing at me in my truck and making faces like I was the last remaining human being and I was just spotted by one of the body snatchers. Then there was that inaudible comment someone made as I took a turn a little too wide. I couldn’t make out the words, but the voice said it all.
But now that I’m a little more used to driving my big ol’ honkin’ truck, I realize I am not the one who should be in fear. It’s the other guy that better start shakin’. I’ll wait a respectable amount of time for traffic to clear the road before I pull on. But, if they don’t start slowing down to let me in eventually, I’ll start throwing my weight around.
“Hah! It’s gonna hurt you a lot more than it’ll hurt me,” I say as I pull out. “Why I could just smash you to smithereens.”
I feel like I’ve gained a new respect from fellow truckers as well. Perhaps the ball cap pulled down over my eyes had something to do with it in addition to the truck, but the other day two men in a pickup truck drove by at slightly below my eye level.
The one in the passenger seat nodded and said a respectable, “How’s it going,” as he passed by. It was quite a change from the usual, “Hey baby.” You don’t make flirtatious comments to someone who could squash you like a bug.
But speaking of squashing others, I can’t quite figure out why I should have to pay liability insurance on the truck in addition to what I already pay on my car. I mean, I can only drive one at a time, therefore I can only smash one person’s car to smithereens at a time. I think liability insurance should be something that is carried on the driver, no matter what car they are driving. After all, it isn’t really the car that causes the accident.
Hopefully I’ll make up the money in savings I get through buying things in quantity though. For instance I was able to buy a “dipperful” (a backhoe shovelful) of mulch for $12, because I had the truck to put it in, whereas I would have probably had to spend three times as much if I had bought it by the bag.
But back to the truck. The feeling of power is really something. As I drive down the road I feel like cars are bowing and moving to let me by as I mumble threats under my breath.
I say to myself, “There’s a Volkswagen Beetle! Out of my way bug! Or I’ll squash you like … well … what you are! And then I see a Volvo or a Mercedes and I say, “You may be more expensive, but I could turn you into scrap heaps, Get outa my way!
Then I see a semi-tractor trailer with a big gasoline tank on the back and I say, “Ooops, my mistake! After you sir!”

Coffee Cans Have Uses, But Not For “Romper Stompers”

Some time ago, I received a news release from Maxwell House coffee in which they listed all of the possible uses for a coffee can and for coffee itself.
Well, as you know, I can’t walk past a scrap of wood lying on the ground without wondering what I might use it for, so I found this list of ideas quite intriguing.
For instance, did you know that you can add a lustrous brown color to your hair by rinsing it in coffee? And at the same time, pouring coffee on a grill can help clean it!
Why do I find these two ideas somewhat contradictory?
Well here’s something that might never have occurred to me: If you have a white table cloth with a coffee stain on it, forget about removing the stain, just soak the entire table cloth in coffee and make it into a brown table cloth.
Hmmm … there are so many things in life to which that same reasoning could be applied. Like … if you have a wrinkle in your pants, take them off and wad them up until you have matching wrinkles all over! Or … if you car has a dent in the hood, run it into a wall and make matching dents! But I’m not knocking it. I actually have quite a few T-shirts that are stained by coffee and I’m willing to take a shot at the coffee dye job.
Other uses for coffee cans included the usual, such as having something to keep your paint or your fishin’ worms in, and there were some uses I thought were just variations on the use-them-to-keep-things-in theory, such as using them to hold cookies, nuts and bolts, or sugar.
And there were some ideas that were quite helpful. For instance, it never occurred to me to cut the top and bottom off a coffee can and put it around fragile seedlings in my garden; and it never occurred to me to use the cans to lift certain vine-like plants off of the ground. Interestingly, the list said that the metal cans end up also serving to ripen fruit on the vines quicker because they gather heat. And the heat repels insects!
But when I began thinking of uses I had witnessed for coffee cans during my childhood, my first thought was of the one thing nobody, but nobody, should ever encourage a kid to use coffee cans for. Remember the old children’s show “Romper Room?” Remember Romper Stompers?
I believe Romper Stompers were developed as some diabolical plot by someone who really didn’t like children and wanted to make sure as many as possible were killed by their parents. I remember seeing the Romper Room lady demonstrate how to make the Stompers by tying strings to coffee cans so you could hold them to the bottom of your feet and walk on them as coffee-can stilts. Then you could stomp all around the house and sing a Romper Stomper tune!
Yeah, I remember that my mother conveniently didn’t have any coffee cans I could use for the purpose.
But I guarantee that walking on Romper Stompers would not have made for a happy time once I got to clanging around the room for a few hours and scuffing circular holes throughout the hardwood floors. What were those Romper people thinking?
Well. Gotta go now. It’s time to get another cup of coffee.
Hey! There’s a use!