Superhero?

The purpose of this blog is to make you the hero or the Friday night dinner table... please print and share...

Quick - how many different uses for baking soda can you name? 

At least three?

How about twenty-two?

Does that seem like a random question?

Following last week's topic, on relating to other people (did you enjoy the double-linked animated image?), this week it's all about mine, truly (i.e., you).

So if you did pretty well on that opening question (meaning, you could come up with more than three), you may very well be a DIY-er. 

But here's the easiest way to tell: If something's broke, would you prefer to fix it yourself, or to pay someone else to fix it for you?

Or perhaps someone at the table is a super-DIY-er - the kind of person who won't throw out that broken headset because maybe one day you'll come up with a hack for it.

Well, I admit I'm being charitable, because the spouse of a person like that would call him (it's usually a him) a pack-rat or a hoarder. 

– "It's broken."
– "But it can be fixed!"
– "It's broken!"
– "But it can be fixed!"
– "It's broken!"
– "But it can be fixed!"

So as a public service, for the promotion of shalom bayit, I'm pleased to share with you a fixit hack that I learned this week. This is for all of those impossible-to-fix things like broken plastic knobs or stripped screws, or stripped screw holes in particle board — all of those frustrating things that you wish you could fix but that you're just about ready to throw in the trash — here's the hack....

It turns out that cyanoacrylate (also known as super glue) can be incredibly strengthened when thickened with calcium bicarbonate (baking soda). 

When I say incredibly strengthened, I mean like rock hard. Like as in hard as a rock. 

The basic hack is this: take whatever needs fixing — whether you're trying to reconnect an impossible plastic break or trying to strengthen a hole — first pour in some baking soda and then fill it with super glue. (If needed, make a masking tape mould first.)

Here's a six-minute video full of practical applications of this hack.

You will be your family's superhero, and you will thank me for it.

And I will say, that's my job, to make you the hero.

So, Hero, here's the final question for your table: Who would be the bigger hero - the one who tries to go it alone, fix the widget and yet fails? Or the one who calls the repairman?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - OK, now we're really into the countdown to Channukah...

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