The Little Things » Mysteries

Another Mystery

Amy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:29:29 +0000

Yesterday’s post reminded me of another mystery: How can someone walk around all day without extreme anxiety, knowing this is sitting on his bathroom counter?

That is a bottle of rubbing alcohol (doesn’t that stuff evaporate quickly or something?), with the cap upside down, balancing on the neck of the bottle, and a Q-Tip on top for good measure. Oh, and did you notice that the bottle is hanging off the edge of the recessed sink?

Men are weird. And yes, I put it away after I took the photo.

Does 6+6=4+8?

Amy — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:26:49 +0000

Is it just me, or would this make you uncomfortable about drinking the soda, too? I mean, I don’t see how that could have happened as an error in the normal packaging process. (Yes, the 4-pack and the 8-pack were both inside the 12-pack, which is supposed to contain loose cans.)

Mysteries

Amy — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:50:21 +0000

Why do parents make the rule, “no running in the house?”

And while we’re at it, why do parents make the rule, “no jumping on the bed?”

Baffling.

Mysteries

Amy — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:42:42 +0000

Why, on those HGTV shows that I can’t stop myself from watching, do the hosts always say, “Oh, you don’t like the paint color? That’s an easy fix.” Every real estate agent I’ve used says the same thing.

Sorry, but painting is not an easy fix! If you do it yourself, you need a couple of days per room, plus the cost of supplies which is not insignificant. You can’t paint a little bit here and a little bit there. You need to have big blocks of time, so, if you’re like us, you’ll have to hire it out. If you do, it is close to $1000 per room (at least that’s the big city price), and you still have quite a bit of inconvenience.

I got three quotes to paint the entire interior of our house including all doors and trim, and two of them were higher than the cost of replacing all the windows in the house. Can you imagine that? Something just seems off here. Luckily, I think I found a guy who will do it for just a bit over half that. He was recommended by someone I trust, so as long as I watch him and his crew like a hawk, I’m hoping it will be ok. There’s nothing more disturbing than a bad paint job. We’ve been living with what one painter called “the worst touch up job I have ever seen” for a year now.

Tip: When buying a house, if the paint is in bad shape, ask the seller for a credit of about $1,000 per big room (don’t count bathrooms and hallways – just bedrooms, living room, kitchen, etc.). And if they won’t give it to you and you still want the house, make sure you have that much to spend.

And don’t trust HGTV!

Mysteries

Amy — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:25:08 +0000

Since we had Sammy, I’ve been running a lot more plastic through the dishwasher. It seems obvious now, but I couldn’t figure out why the ceramic and glass would come out dry and the plastic would always be wet. Answer: Ceramic and glass are better heat conductors and therefore stay hot longer and get drier than plastic. Duh!

Since that mystery was solved, here’s another one. Why doesn’t anybody make a lightweight children’s step stool taller than a measly 8 inches? We have stools all over the house, but have yet to figure out a good solution for the bathroom sinks. Right now, this is what we have to deal with in our tiny powder room:

If you look closely, you can see that the stool blocks almost half the doorway. It is a tiny space and I can’t imagine keeping it like this as long as Sammy needs a stool. She has to stand on the 2nd step and she can just barely reach the handles to turn on the water. She cannot reach the soap because of that completely non-functional sink. (For the life of me, I cannot understand why anybody would ever buy a pedestal sink. There is no storage and no countertop space. But that’s another mystery altogether.)

Anyway, this is a mystery I haven’t been able to solve. Any ideas out there?