Household Hints. No, really.
I’m a regular Martha Stewart over here with my household hints. Don’t pay attention to the dog hair is piled up in drifts under the coffee table. I’m here to help. Seriously. If you’ve seen the inside of my house, quit laughing.
Hint 1: Cleaning nasty coffee smell out of thermal carafes and travel mugs
Toss a couple denture tabs in there, add some warm water and it will be clean in no time. Do not mistake the foam for cappuccino and take a swallow, though. It’s minty fresh, but probably not good for your digestion. I buy generic brand foaming denture tablets in boxes of 100 for this very purpose. No, I don’t have dentures. Yet.
Hint 2: Keeping from giving yourself food poisoning
Take a piece of twine and tie a loop in it. Slip the loop under the clip on the cap of a Sharpie. Hang it on your fridge from a magnet. Now you have a Sharpie handy and you can write the date you opened a carton of food on the lid.
Was that Tuesday or last Friday that you opened the soup? Now you know. Death averted. Whew.
Hint 3: Have a fully charged phone
A friend clued me into this because I wasn’t smart enough to think of it on my own. Now I’m passing it on to you. When I go to bed, my phone goes to bed. I put my two Blackberries (one for home, one for work, sigh) on their chargers every single time I go to bed for the night. Don’t you hate when people are always saying “My phone is dying”? Ok, maybe it is just me and they’re just trying to get me off the phone. But if you give your phone good sleep all night, you’ll practically never have the “phone dying” problem again.
That’s three hints – about all I can handle. Talk to you later. I have to get back to laying on the couch and ignoring the dog fur.
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Suebob's Red Stapler 
Awesome. I am so going to try the denture tablets in travel mugs thing.
I just do it about once a week.
Reading your blogs (aka essays) is like stumbling onto a 21st century, English version of Montaigne or a reincarnated Erma Bombeck. Your knack for grabbing my literary interest is sooo satisfyingly good! It’s like I’m eavesdropping on a telephone party-line in Maine in the (good) old days! Thankee fer Goldies top 20 concerns, the houshold hints, the pretty photos, and your candor and courage in expressing life as it impinges on you and you strike right back!! Brevity may be the soul of wit but I’m only half-way there. Bruce
Bruce, you are too kind. And entirely full-witted.
I do the sharpie thing! 🙂 Love that denture tabs idea.
Hope your 2011 is off to a good start, SueBob.
Great, there goes my patent idea for the Sharpie 🙂
So far, so good. Hope I get to see you sometime soon.
I’ve always done the “putting the cellphone to bed” thing, but the denture tablet thing is new to me. I don’t drink coffee, but my iced tea mucks up the inside of my travel mug something awful.
It’s pretty amazing. My brother-in-law taught it to me.
hmm. that denture thing is genius. i have a thermos full of boiling water in my sink now ’cause i forgot the damn thing in the car for *ahem* a couple of weeks.
Minty fresh. I promise you.