lost

Lost buttons!

A pile of buttonsA couple of years ago, my clothes dryer needed some maintenance. I had workers come and replace the heating element and main bearing.

When they opened it up, dozens and dozens of buttons fell out. I’ve lost many buttons from my shirts over the years and there they all were! I resolved to do something about it.

I decided to change how I did my laundry. I’ve always turned printed t-shirts inside out  to preserve the inked design. Now, for my button-down shirts, I do the same. I button them up completely and turn them inside out before putting them in the wash. I also invert the cuffs and collar.

It takes a little extra work to prep the shirts for the laundry. When they come out of the dryer, I turn them right side out and unbutton them.

It’s been a roaring success. In the two years since I started this, I haven’t lost a single button in my laundry. I wear a lot of button down shirts, especially in cold weather, and I know  that the effort at prevention is worth it.

Image origin buttons by bptakoma. Image license

Cat-astrophe averted

A padlockI like my cat. She is well behaved and doesn’t make a mess.

I went to my storage unit today. I got out the padlock key. The lock was stuck in the hole so I tried wiggling it. Good enough….

Then, it happened. I dropped the key. It would normally not be a big deal.. lean over and pick it up, right? But to my misfortune, the key fell right into the crack between the unit’s concrete and the concrete along the pavement.

I was not too upset. (For sufficiently high values of “too upset.”)

I tried picking out out with a regular key tag and, of course, dropped the key tag in the slot too. I broke out the big guns and used the temple piece of my glasses to pull out both of them.

It looked like the groove went a lot deeper, but I was fortunate in my misfortune that it didn’t fall that deep.

I got one more box out of the storage unit—the rest of my music collection—so that I could continue making progress toward the goal of closing down the storage unit.

Time to put a bigger key tag on the key’s ring.

And Zorro was happy to see me when I returned home.