Real Simple Scores Again

Readers of the blog will recall how much crankyjewishguy (CJG) values the household tips regularly provided by the good people at Real Simple magazine. For those with nothing but time on their hands, it's an incredible resource. For example, if you have a few weeks free, you can fluff your carpets with a dinner fork.

So, CJG was really interested when he saw a Real Simple web feature called "New Uses for Things in the Bathroom." There were 74 of them, but CJG only got up to about 39 before he was overcome with excitement. If you've been fluffing your carpets with a dinner fork, chances are when it comes time to meet your friends at a restaurant, you won't have time for a full shower and shampoo so you can "fake" a shampoo, according to Real Simple, by sprinkling baby powder on your head like a British judge and "combing it to the roots." But, really, can you imagine having so little time you can't spare 30 seconds to wash your hair properly? CJG also liked the suggestion that you can clean the gunk from your tile grout with an electric toothbrush. But it seemed a serious omission not to mention that you should change the toothbrush head when you're done. How did that get by legal? Need to dry your ear canals? A few drops of rubbing alcohol will do the trick, but trust CJG, is you have even a tiny scratch in there it's going to hurt like hell.

But there's no bathroom item that seems to have more uses than dental floss. For those who can't afford $3.99 for a cheese slicer at WalMart, you can use dental floss to slice cheese and hard boiled eggs (do not try on aged parmesan), mend your umbrella when the fabric separates from the metal spines, tie up a chicken or roast, slice a cake horizontally (something CJG has to do every day), or as a thread substitute. Having trouble picturing all this? Here are some visuals (CJG's favorite is the raw chicken):

Using floss to truss the chicken is especially clever since you can use the floss after you've eaten the chicken to clean your teeth or sew on a button. CJG would appreciate it if you didn't tell the people at Real Simple he's using their photos, but since the legal department is asleep at the switch it probably doesn't matter anyway.

All of this inspired CJG to come up with a few tips of his own. For example, you can use your toilet to provide a point of interest in an otherwise bland landscape, though CJG recommends having a back-up plan at home.

Did you know you can also use toothpaste to caulk around your tub? Much easier to use than the real stuff. And, finally, this: if you're making a Blue Hawaiian and run out of Blue Curacao, you can use Vick's NyQuil cold and flu symptom reliever, though you may find your guests nodding off earlier than usual. Bon appetit!

Fluff Those Carpets? Get Real

Readers of crankyjewishguy (CJG) will recall that a couple of days ago he passed along some helpful household tips from Real Simple magazine, known in the psychiatric community as the Journal of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. One of those tips was that you can use a fork to fluff up your carpets. (Under no circumstances should you use Marshmallow Fluff for this purpose, despite the name. They won't tell you this on the Marshmallow Fluff web site, but CJG will.)

Now, CJG will freely admit that he's a tad compulsive, which is why he uses tight little words such as "tad" instead of "really" or "extremely." So, he has spent sixteen hours over the past two days with a dinner fork trying to make his carpets look like Donald Trump's hair and so far he has managed to get three and a half square feet of his living room carpet to sit approximately .00025 inches higher than the rest of the carpet, sort of like what you see here.

Unfortunately, this is well outside CJG's tolerance for lack of uniformity (as is the Donald's hair) and now he either has to borrow an industrial strength iron to flatten out the fluffed carpet, or spend another six to ten days fluffing the remaining 92 and 1/2 square feet with a dinner fork. But since CJG, inspired by Real Simple's determination to recommend time consuming ways to use ordinary household implements for purposes other than those for which they were intended, CJG doesn't have that much free time. For example, since two feet of snow fell here last week, CJG has been using a soup spoon and a ladle to remove approximately five tons of snow from his front walk and driveway and so far he's made it to the mailbox, which is immediately outside his front door. But CJG reminds himself to be patient because people in East Berlin used to tunnel into West Berlin with the same equipment.

Even the Berlin Wall was no match for a simple soup spoon.

When he finishes removing the snow this summer, CJG is going to try filling a swimming pool with a thimble, or reading twelve back issues of Real Simple with binoculars.

Life Made Real Simple: Don't Try This at Home!

Crankyjewishguy's (CJG) wife used to get a magazine called Real Simple, and occasionally CJG would leaf through it for tips on organizing his socks, things he could buy to help him organize his socks, and consultants he could hire to help him organize his socks. Typically, there was at least one article a month on this topic. Perusing Real Simple, CJG was struck by how much stuff one would have to own to make use of the tsunami of advice, organizational and otherwise, they have to offer in every issue. Hey, what do you recommend for organizing back copies of Real Simple? How about a recycling bin?

Did you know that according to Real Simple you can use mayonnaise as a hair conditioner? Or, if you have three weeks with nothing better to do, you can fluff your carpets with a fork? Or how about these adorable little berry baskets to organize your bathroom stuff?

Isn't that just so cute? Those things should last at least a week before they're covered with expectorated toothpaste, soap scum and mold from being saturated with water. And note the high quality, staple and balsa wood construction. That should hold up to the rough and tumble of the average household for a few hours. Given what's in these baskets, CJG estimates the average woman would need about eight thousand of them to hold all her bathroom supplies. Boy, what CJG wouldn't give to be at the editorial meetings where people think up brilliant ideas like this. 

One of CJG's favorite Real Simple tips is to use oatmeal as an "At-Home" facial product, as if someone might smear oatmeal all over their face and then ride the commuter train to the office, or board a flight to Tokyo. Yeah, if you're thinking of covering your face with oatmeal, you might want to stay home with the person with all that mayonnaise in their hair lest the two of you get attacked by a pack of rabid racoons.

Recently, Real Simple had a useful feature about non-kitchen related uses for your dishwasher, followed by a list of things you should never put in your dishwasher. Did you know, for example, that you can wash potatoes in your dishwasher? (Don't add detergent). Or garden tools, shin guards, knee pads and plastic hairbrushes? (Every other Real Simple tip is hair related.) Believe it or not, you can even cook salmon in your dishwasher if you don't mind the smell. For a future issue Real Simple no doubt has five hundred tips for eradicating the salmon odor lined up, including roasting a brisket in there. CJG isn't clear whether you put the salmon in alive or cleaned and skinned, in foil or on a baking sheet, or whether you put the marinade in the detergent dispenser or just throw it in willy nilly, but there's probably a whole cookbook in this somewhere. And what setting do you use? Pots and Pans? Quick Wash? And why salmon? Can a dishwasher distinguish between salmon and sturgeon? Maybe someone should come up with a dishwasher with settings like, "White Flakey Fish," "Oily Fish," and "Shellfish," so people don't have to figure out how long the lobsters are supposed to steam every time. Frankly, CJG has no intention of cooking anything in his dishwasher. That's why he has a stove, an oven, a toaster oven, a microwave, and a gas grill. If you need more options than that, CJG recommends a snow blower which doubles nicely as a food processor. CJG also suggests grilling fish whenever possible. Then you just put the entire grill in the dishwasher to clean it. 

Pre-heat dishwasher to 5,000 degrees and use a chain saw to cut
salmon into 20 pound filets. Cook for five days or until done.

What makes all this so interesting, is the list of things you should never put in a dishwasher: formal dishes, "nice" flatware, crystal glasses, wooden spoons, good kitchen knives, steak knives, wood cutting boards, insulated mugs and containers, and children under the age of four. In other words, just about everything you might actually use in a kitchen and need to put in the dishwasher. See, life isn't so simple after all which is why CJG is looking for investors for his new venture: a magazine called Real Complicated. Contact CJG for a prospectus.