. . . because I can’t bring myself to call them “hacks.” When my Brooklyn grandmother’s health started to fail and she moved in with us in the early ’80’s, she set up a little gauzy, plasticky apartment upstairs and installed the first TV we ever had. She liked watching Benny Hill, and also football, because of the tight, shiny pants. But she would also watch professional hockey. Every time one of the players bumped into each other, she would shout, “HOCK!”
I was thinking of her as I filled out a genetic questionnaire in which I just basically wrote CANCERCANCERCANCER in big letters over the whole thing and then whispered “also crazy.” But I’m not feeling discouraged. I’m the kind of person who gets things done! So I present to you my Tuesday list of very helpful life HOCKS.
- Keep a pair of tongs next to your couch. That way, when you’re using your phone as a flashlight so you can figure out what’s holed up behind the couch and terrifying the cat, and you accidentally drop your phone down there, you can get your phone without sticking your hand down there.
Extra life hock: It’s probably just an apple core. Probably not an opossum.
Extra extra life hock: When someone pees on the couch, take the cover off the cushion. This is what Martha Stewart does, and she’s a felon. HOCK!
2. Fix your fan with this simple forking trick.
Say, bunky. Do you have weirdly-designed bedroom with strange little miniature windows where no air gets in? Do your children further stifle air flow by filling their entire living space with mountains of garbage? Do you feel bad for them anyway, because even bad children shouldn’t sweat themselves to death every night? So do you offer them your fan, which is the last surviving fan in the house, even though you bought eleven fans last summer? And did you then find out that the fan makes a horrible clattering, chattering sound when you plug it in, because the little jerks have been standing on it (presumably to help them reach the top of their garbage pile to put more garbage on), and now the fan blades scrape the plastic guard as they spin?
Simply take a fork, bend, and insert it as shown. Plug it in and enjoy the sweet, sweet garbage breeze for us, God’s garbage people. HOCK!
3. Add the library’s address to your Amazon account. That way, when you lose that great literary work A Merry Shopkins Christmas and they suspended your library card again, you can easily and efficiently send a replacement book on its way without having to look anyone in the faceballs.
Just remember to put on your Amazon shopping bra first.
It doesn’t get any more easy and efficient than that! Except for maybe not always losing the– NO, I said it doesn’t get anymore easy and efficient than that. HOCK!
4. Need to potty train a toddler, but she has pop rocks in her brain and you just can’t face it?
Find yourself a teenager and pay her to do it! No kidding. A big bag of candy, a $20 bill, and a package of MLP panties as an end prize, and when someone pees on the couch, just shout “MARTHA STEWART” and someone has to go wash the cover for you. HOCK HOCK HOCK HOCK HOCK!
The only trick is, you need to start planning this hock 19 years previously. You know what to do. Or if you don’t, go watch some Benny Hill.
Image via Wikipedia (Creative Commons)
Our family started out with a black and white TV. Only later did we get a color TV. That was a long time ago.
My daughter peed on the couch the other day. I cried when my husband suggested I take the cover off to wash it because HOW AM I ABOUT TO HAVE #4 AND I’VE NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT???
My life feels so uninspired now..
And if you’re renting an otherwise lovely house that was built without proper heat-ventilation in the attic, just pop open the little door to the attic and shove a powerful floor fan up in there, hook it up to the hallway light with a socket, and HOCK! you have an attic fan that helps draw heat out of the upper level of the house.
Also, if your kitchen is on the top floor and you don’t want to build up heat in it, find you a nice outside outlet, plug a power strip in it, set a board atop a truck box, and you can plug in a crock pot or a toaster or a hot plate, and cook just about anything outside. HOCK!
I did this with the deep fat fryer! And we have a grill with a burner so I’m outside cooking eggs in the morning and hamburgers for dinner. It seems we’re evolving into preferring a summer kitchen. And I just bought a crock pot so that’s next outside.
My mom used to put the crock pot in the garage with any strong smelling food (like corned beef and cabbage). Same effect as outside but sheltered during bad weather. HOCK!
PS _ I am also ashamed for having forgotten about removing the cushion overs for too many years. My youngest son’s feckless adventures in potty training last spring made me finally resort to it. Why did I wait so long? And I also decided to take the actual cushions and hose them off outside to get rid of lingering smells. (I didn’t care what the neighbors thought – I was so tired of living with the constant hint of pee in the air.) And it worked. SO HOCK! again.
Potty training already? God bless it.
Over here, we have four kids with head lice. Of course, the infestation vector with the worst case has the THICKEST HAIR IN THE WORLD and her sister with not as thick hair is trying to be Rapunzel. Thank God the 8-year-old shrugged and said “sure” when I explained that if I cut about six inches off her hair the delousing process would be much, much easier.
And speaking of life hocks: The best thing you can do for a head lice infestation is have a husband who, while you are still limp with horror and despair, quietly reads up on what to do and starts gathering up the bedding and hairbrushes and gets on with it. A prince among men!
You know, this just proves to me that the variables that afflict us in this life can be so few, and so universal:
Fans, garbage, fees, push up bras, pee, parasitical little jerks, books that need to be tossed in the garbage, cancer and crazy.
1. My good oscillating fan on a stand was stolen by my nephew. He is so brazen he just uses it in his bedroom across the pool yard, in full view of my living room.
He doesn’t know that I have contact lenses now. The crappy little one that he left me has a sandwich bag twisty holding it together. They also took a full length mirror while I was gone because the motto here is: “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine.” Beach chairs, tables, boogie boards, umbrellas and towels? Harharharhar.
2. There was so much garbage/weeds/old palm fronds/dog-cat poop in the pool yard when I arrived, that I cussed for hours on end and muttered things like “hillbillies!” I earned myself a deep sunburn that peeled because I was too mad to put on sunscreen. When I told my niece to warn her Mom that I was going to use the blower, and that she should close her bedroom door. My niece said that it doesn’t close. It’s rusted open. “Doesn’t your Dad fix anything?”I asked. She said “nope”.
3. Fees:I’m evading the law because my car won’t get a sticker until it passes the smog test. It doesn’t want to pass the smog test because it’s 20 years old.
4. Push up bra: My sister always wears one with tail feathers for the solstice parade. This year’s theme was “Phoenix from the Ashes” They were red and gold. She landed on the front page of the newspaper again. She’s currently on the cover of our HOA newsletter and she’s Miss June for the citywide calendar next year. She had pole dancers on her float this year. A couple of days ago, when I came home from the beach, my Mom said “Good God, Anna Lisa, can’t you afford a bigger bathing suit?” I even had a wet suit jacket on. she just can’t see it.
5. Pee: one of the five dogs here strolled into my bedroom this morning, and peed on my PJs on the floor. They have an entire acre to roam on.
6. Parasitical little jerks: I don’t even know where to start. Yes.
7. Books that shouldn’t occupy space on the planet: So many dusty ones here, they cover entire walls and are the habitat of generations of spiders. (At least I disposed of the Republican ones in the cover of night with my oldest son.)
8. Cancer/Crazy: Yes. It’s only a matter of time now.