http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5941546Oh my.
madamesilverspurs (1000+ posts) Sat Jun-27-09 08:08 PM
Original message
Easy help for achy hands
Came up with this quite accidentally. At the dollar store I got one of those long flexible rubber tubes (about four feet long, maybe 3" diameter), it's sold as a pool toy. I had a household project that I was going to use it for, but it wasn't right for it. But I got to looking at the thing and decided it might be able to help with something else.
Using my scissors I cut off about a four-inch length, then opened one side of the tube. The resulting strange-looking device fits neatly around the handles of my book bag, providing a grip that greatly lessens the strain on the fingers. It also works with those evil plastic grocery bags, and can carry multiples comfortably. Took me about three minutes to make half a dozen of these, and I keep them in the grocery box in the back of my car. Two of them went to a friend with rheumatoid arthritis, and she dearly loves them. So far it's turning out the be the best dollar I ever spent, wanted to share the idea.
Sometimes you just gotta love serendipity!
First up, the Rita Hayworth primitive:
Tangerine LaBamba (1000+ posts) Sat Jun-27-09 08:10 PM
Response to Original message
1. Excellent -
sometimes we just need to change our perspective.
What a great discovery!
Take a bow...............
Uh, franksolich as a regular viewer of the cooking and baking forum on Skins's island, begs to differ.
The primitives will NEVER change their perspective, their cerebral cells having long ago died, petrified, and fossilized.
A good example of this is the primitives and their cookware.
Primitives do not know how to use one item for several purposes. For example, the primitives in the cooking and baking forum oftentimes mention using one 2-quart pot for boiling corn, another 2-quart pot especially for boiling peas, a third 2-quart pot dedicated to boiling rice, a fourth 2-quart pot strictly for boiling beans, a fifth 2-quart pot only for boiling chicken noodle soup, and so on.
And then the primitives turn around and whine about lack of cupboard space.
It never occurs to the primitives that a single 2-quart pot can do all these things.
When it comes to the multiple use of an item, the primitives are in the pre-Stone Age; they can't imagine it, they can't conceive of it.
MineralMan (1000+ posts) Sat Jun-27-09 08:16 PM
Response to Original message
3. Great adaptation of a common item to another purpose!
Finding alternative uses for existing objects is a sign of high intelligence.
Another use for those "noodles" is for fishermen, who can attach lures to the foam and remove them quickly and easily. I have a 3' length of it hot-glued inside my boat. When I'm fishing, I hook the fishing lures I will be using to the foam, letting me change them quickly without digging through my tackle box. The type of foam use for them doesn't hold the hooks firmly.
My hands often hurt from arthritis. I'll try your tip.
Yeah, right, like that exists on Skins's island.
BeatleBoot (1000+ posts) Sat Jun-27-09 08:31 PM
Response to Original message
11. Made in China
If it came from the dollar store.
But I do understand the pain of arthritis.
If things keep going as they are, we'll probably end up getting those jobs back from China - at a fraction of the cost to the manufacturers.
Then we'll all be living under tarps.
I thought that all changed on January 20, 2009.
The primitives promised us it would.
One wonders what's up with that.
