Lesson learned, tough stuff

Reason #27 why Blistex is better than Chapstick:

In our family, we girls were expected to do our own laundry starting at the age of twelve. Throughout my high school and college years, I had the unfortunate habit of leaving a tube of Blistex in my pants' pockets while washing my clothes. This often brought me angst, as the Blistex wasn't salvageable after a run through the dryer, but at least the extent of my woes was a ruined tube of lip balm. The then-melted nectar of the gods managed to stay concealed inside the tube, and my clothes were no worse for the wear.

I must've run at least half a dozen or more tubes of Blistex through the wash, with the same result. Naturally, the one time a tube of Chapstick weaseled its way into the laundry, it exploded in a fury all over Jacob's and my shirts in the dryer. This was a tragedy, and I admit I was a bit of a Sir Grumpsalot when I found out. Jacob and I dutifully applied a stain remover treatment to each grease spot we found on our clothes and ran them through the wash again.

A small improvement, but the spots were still there. And then the clothes sat in the dryer for five days while I successfully avoided thinking about trying something else to remove the stains.

Today, I tried using dish soap to remove the rest of the stains. After a nice soak in the tub, back into the washing machine they went. Upon retrieving the laundry, I noticed that some grease spots remained, but I went ahead and hung the clothes up in the closet anyway. Maybe nobody else will notice?

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Reason #59 not to buy an 88 cent can opener:

A few months ago, the can opener I, ahem, accidentally stole from one of my former roommates kicked the bucket. I resorted to borrowing a can opener from one of our neighbors in desperation, but before long we determined we needed to purchase one of our own.

As Jacob and I perused the kitchen needs aisle at Walmart, we were overwhelmed by how many varieties of can openers there were. Well, really, there were only two or three different kinds, but the prices varied widely. What made a $12 or $15 can opener better than a $3 or $4 one? And why spend that much money when you could purchase a can opener for 88 cents?

As it turns out, the reason for spending that much money is so your can opener doesn't break on you mere months after purchase. A few nights ago I was attempting to open a Costco-sized can of peaches for my not-quite-midnight snack, and I was struggling. I called for Super Husband to come to the rescue and open the can to satisfy my peach craving.

He was unable to get the can opener to work, either, and after 15 minutes with no success, he decided to use scissors to cut the lid off. Um, yeah. Said can is now a death trap (or at least a mutilation hazard):

But I was able to eat my peaches, and that's what really matters. Though I guess now we need to buckle down and fork over some money for a higher quality can-opening device.