Unauthorized Uses: Disaster Engineering

I don’t set out to create chaos. I’m actually the sort of person who dislikes chaos. And yet…. As I mentioned in my kintsugi post, I have a wide, wild streak of impatience in my personality that leads to disaster whether I like it or not (and I don’t). I do try. I have tried, very hard, for nearly 50 years. But…it just TAKES too long, or something is in the WAY, or I’m thinking about the next thing I have to do, or I’m upset, or distracted…. And then something inevitably breaks or scratches or spills or burns.

Fortunately for me, I was also born with a talent for Disaster Engineering. My sister has it, too. Our family motto is, We Can Rig That (imagine it in Latin–much more impressive, I’m sure, but I don’t speak Latin despite my mother’s vow that her daughters would be able to cook, sew, knit and speak Latin before they left home. By the age of 17 I was still 0 for 4. So, she stuck a Walkman loaded with Learn Latin in Two Weeks! audiotapes on my head on our last roadtrip to Michigan to visit the relatives. This gambit lasted precisely until Oklahoma, when I proudly announced, “Hey, Mom! I know how to say, ‘Go to Hell!’* in Latin!” And then she was like, Give me that. Thus ended my Latin education).

So, in case you are disaster-prone like I am, here are some inventive ways I have found to make it go away–or at least, make unobservant people not notice it. If my friend Cathy comes over, you’re screwed. She notices everything.

• Shop vac: Your Disaster Engineering BFF. I just used it to get a spilled latte out of the wheelwell of a rental car. Rancid milk in the hot summer…been there, done that. Now, when it happens, I judiciously soak the area with a solution of warm water and liquid deodorizer (like Febreeze or something in a 1:1 ratio), let it sit for 10-15 minutes, and then shop-vac it out of there. Three or four soaks usually does the trick.
• Velcro: There is very little you can’t restore to a semblance of fixed-ness with velcro. I’m partial to the peel-and-stick adhesive type. I have used it on various plastic covers/fairings on cars, on upholstery, on cabinet fronts…. Velcro is currently holding my new thermostat to my wall after the HVAC guys decided it was too hard to mount it to the stud and left it hanging out of the drywall like a loose tooth. Double-sided carpet tape works very similarly (like, to hem up too-long pants in a pinch)…but velcro gives you wiggle room and repositionality that carpet tape does not.
• Spray paint: The multitude of sins I have covered with spray paint…. Probably the most notorious was when I dented/scraped the front bumper of my white Jetta wagon on the corner of the retaining wall next to the driveway in our old house. My ex-husband was…a bit temperamental, so I decided it was preferable to Disaster Engineer the situation rather than fess up. So, I popped the bumper back out with a crowbar, sanded down the scuffed bit with our rotary sander, and got a can of white spray paint and painted it over. I am ashamed proud to say the Jetta even sold without anyone being any the wiser.
• Nail polish and Sharpies: Honorable mentions for these, which, provided you get the color to match closely enough, will cover chips and scratches so they look OK “from a trotting horse,” as my Aunt Vi used to say.
• Corks: It’s amazing what you can shim/plug with a cork. I buy them in multi-size packs, but you can shave down wine corks to size in a pinch.
• Toothpaste: Really does work well to fill in nail holes and hairline plaster cracks. Not the blue kind, obviously.
• Shoe polish: Do not underestimate its power to mimic wood stain and disguise scratches in leather upholstery. Just buff it well or you’re gonna give up the game immediately.

*Abi in malam crucem. FYI.