By J. MARSHALL CRAIG
None of this ever happened…but it could.
We join the Hack family of Falmouth on July 4.
Dad Jerome is out back with some Impossible burgers and dogs on the grill. Mom Kate is used to daughter Jill always forgetting to bring the mayo and mustard back into the kitchen (she’s 17, so, well, yeah). This year, she comes up with a clever solution: she puts all the lunch condiments into a muffin pan. Quick to clean up and the jar of mayo won’t sit out in the sun all day.
After lunch, Kate reminds Jerome to go to Eastman’s on Main street to pick up some paint for the spare room they’ve been renovating. He grabs his favorite YETI full of iced tea and heads for the old pickup. It’s his favorite vehicle, despite being as old as he is and looking just as worn. It’s from before the time of cup holders…but, no concern: Jerome learned a long time ago that putting a big roll of gaffer’s tape on the seat beside him works just fine.
As Kate is putting away the lunch leftovers, she looks at the bowl of half-eaten guacamole on the counter: it goes brown so quickly, doesn’t it? All it needs, she thinks, is a layer of water on top before she covers it and puts it back in the fridge; that will keep it looking and tasting fresh and, when someone wants to snack later, the water just needs to be poured off first.
When Jerome is back, he heads straight to the spare room he’s been working on. The screws holding up an old shelf he wants to take down have been stripped. He knows what to do: thick rubber bands on the end of his screwdriver and…problem solved. Well, that problem solved. Now he needs to somehow sink two screws in the wall to hold up a power strip. That caffeine from the 20 oz. iced tea seems to be kicking in, however. He takes the power strip and photocopies the back. Now he has a perfect template from which to drill his holes and sink the screws.
And the leftover rubber band? He and Kate are big on reusing and recycling, so that band goes on the freshly opened paint can, so that paint doesn’t run down the outside.
It’s all a pretty typical day at the Hacks’ home, right down to the backyard fire they like to have on summer nights like this. Only, Jerome has been a bit too good about cleaning up the yard, and there isn’t a single stick or branch to be found to use as kindling. Thankfully, Jill left a bowl of Doritos on the picnic table. In a pinch, Jerome knows, they’ll do just fine to start the fire.
The Hacks may not be real, but the “life hacks” are.
Popular on such social media platforms as Pinterest and YouTube, life hacks are all the rage in home renovation, cleaning, maintenance and, well…life.
They say you can’t make time. But you can save it with such cool and clever tips and you may save a few bucks while making the tasks of your days a little easier.
In no particular order, we’ve assembled some of our favorite and most-used life hacks for your home, garden and piece of mind this fall.
Vinegar keeps a boiling egg intact
We seem to be eating more eggs these days. Maybe we just want the protein; maybe we want to celebrate (and justify the expense of) all those backyard chickens we got. But so often have we boiled a batch of eggs that one, or more, of them, cracks and the white leaks out in a stringy mess. Just put a few splashes of vinegar in the water and problem solved.
Dust fans with a pillowcase
You’ve gone to all the trouble to bring a ladder into the living room and you climb up precariously to wipe down the dirty blades of that huge fan that struggles to keep you cool all summer long. Your spirit hardly soars to see all the dust and dirt caked on from the humid weather, and it downright sloops when every touch of a rag sends dirty clumps raining down onto the couch. Next spring when you repeat this, you’ll maybe use an old pillowcase stretched over the blade and wipe the dust inside as you pull it back. Oh, and while you’re up there, make sure your ceiling fan is spinning in reverse during winter months to re-circulate warmer air up high back down to the floor.
You’ll find that you can polish silver with toothpaste; remove clothing stains with lemon, clean jewelry with (unflavored) seltzer and get gum out of your hair (yeah, yeah, your kids’ hair, sure) with peanut butter.
A little caution that not all urban legends of life hacks necessarily are true—such as the gallons of Windex the characters in the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” use to cure everything ‘from psoriasis to poison ivy.” Sure, it’s useful around the house, but not THAT useful.
WD-40, on the other hand, is. The squeaky door’s best friend, the petroleum lubricant can be used to prevent rust, loosen nuts, clean tools and—even—clean a badly stained toilet.
Turns out your house is full of handy little things: paper coffee filters are a blessing when you repot plants: line the new pot with one and it will keep the soil from clogging up—or running out of—the drainage holes in the bottom.
As winter approaches, those days of wet shoes and boots will be among us. But the Enterprise is here to help. Seriously: scrunch up last week’s newspaper, stuff it in a wet boot and leave it overnight. By morning, your boot will be dry and ready, well, to get wet all over again.
Speaking of wet again, do you dread the Thanksgiving dinner prep of washing potato after potato? Why not just put a load of potatoes on the top rack of your empty dishwasher and run them through a cold rinse cycle (without soap, of course).
Come those dark nights of deep frost that coat your car windows: fight back! A spray bottle with three parts vinegar and one part water is a frost killer. Soak your vehicle windows the night before, wipe with an old rag and, presto, in the morning you’ll be either all, or mostly, frost free.
If you thought Wikipedia could take you into a deep crevasse of infinite trivia, just try searching out life hacks. While, we’re not so sure Jerome Hack would approve the idea of making grilled cheese in a toaster placed on its side; but sometimes, a pan is just a pan and a toaster is just… a toaster.