Alice Makes Repairs
October 24, 2011
Alice likes to fix things. So much so that, back in Iowa, my father bought her a red toolbox for her 70th birthday and filled it with hammers, pliers, screwdriver sets, etc. He tied it up with a red bow. She considered it the best gift he ever gave her.
She passed the toolbox on to my nephew when she moved here to Oregon. I bought her a screwdriver, pliers, a purse-sized sewing kit, and a set of tiny tools for tightening loose screws in eyeglasses. But for a woman who has never met a fix-it task she didn’t like, this is a paltry supply of gizmos. Last night I realized my mother is the mother of invention when it comes to repairs.
She called to say that her hand-held Solitaire game had stopped working. It looks like this:
This game is something she relies on once or twice a week for entertainment. When it fizzled out, she changed the batteries. That did nothing. She shook it gently. No good.
“Finally,” she said, “I dropped it on the floor.”
“On purpose?”
“On purpose. I held it above my head and dropped it. And then I reached down and clunked it a few times against the carpet. Hard. Now it works fine.”
This success swung open the door to new possibilities. Her remote control for the Web TV had been on the fritz for the past two days. She did the same thing with that. “I figured if it worked for the Solitaire game, it should work for the remote control.”
And she was right.
“Then after I got my remote fixed and my Solitaire game fixed, guess what I did to relax.”
“Tell me.”
“I soaked my feet in Efferdent.”
I was speechless.
“Oh, it felt so good!” she said. “My feet were in a sorry state. But when I took them out of the Efferdent foot bath, my toenails were nice and soft and easy for me to cut with that sewing scissors you got me.”
“How did you ever get this idea?”
“I was looking in my bathroom cabinet and thinking to myself, Now what can I soak my feet in? I saw the Efferdent and thought, Why not?”
That was not the end of it. “When I was done soaking my feet and giving myself a pedicure,” she said, “I put some Efferdent on a sponge with some warm water and cleaned up those dirty spots on the carpet.”
I knew immediately which spots she meant. They were dark smudges on the beige carpet and had been there since before she moved in.
“Of course it worked,” she said, “but now those spots look cleaner than the rest of the carpet. So it goes.”
The Efferdent story reminded me of my Aunt Mattie, who also easily saw more than one use for things. For example, when she was in her eighties she once wrote to me that for breakfast she’d eaten half a grapefruit, grabbed it and rubbed the pulp on her face for its astringent properties, and then hurried out to her garden to plant the seeds.
Although grapefruit seeds wouldn’t even consider growing in North Dakota, no matter. She liked living by Waste not, Want not, if only for the pleasure of writing to me about it.
After our conversation I was curious enough about Efferdent to Google it. I found this, a list of things you can do with denture cleaner.
I read the list to Alice, and she was impressed. She did notice that “foot bath” was missing. “What’s the matter with those people?” she asked me. “Don’t they have any imagination?”
The Mother of Invention
Alice’s Foot Soak Recipe:
Two tabs of Efferdent
Foot-sized bowl of warm water
Slip feet into water.
Ahhhhhhhh….
Note: Actual Efferdent foot bath in no way resembles this photograph.
For more of Alice’s inventiveness, see Alice’s Make-Up Recipe.
October 24, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Ahhh! Good one. Do you know that duct (duck) tape cures plantar warts? I guess it re-established the immune system to fend off the wart virus. I’m trying it right now and will let you know how it works on the stubborn wart I’ve had on the sole of my pretty right foot for a LONG time! In fact, those feet in the soak could be mine… ; )
October 24, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Oh those ducks, always going around trying to make the world a happier place.
October 24, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Efferdent is on my list of things to buy! Actually the foot soak sounds better than getting the minerals out of my vases.
What fun! I have a tool box painted lime green–think it was one my former husband Tom discarded. Oh and I bought myself a bigger, and red one when I moved into my townhouse 21 years ago. They are truly useful!
Thanks, Andrea, for the into and the memories.
Carol
October 24, 2011 at 10:35 pm
Carol, please be aware of what’s in Efferdent. I looked it up tonight. See my response to Wendy.
I’m glad the post brought back good memories for you.
October 24, 2011 at 6:28 pm
I am going to pick up some Efferdent and give that foot soak a try!
October 24, 2011 at 10:34 pm
Are you serious, Wendy? I hope those of you who are really thinking about doing this will look up the ingredients of Efferdent first. Apparently, some people are allergic and some have skin reactions. I came across this tonight:
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5445931_efferdent-denture-cleaner-reactions.html
Alice is tough and has a mind of her own. I could no more talk her out of doing foot soaks with Efferdent than I could talk her out of her morning coffee. But please be aware that nothing on these posts is meant to be advice for anyone!
October 24, 2011 at 10:01 pm
Terrific idea. I’m trying to clean a large rug in Sophie’s room, but I want to use something non-toxic. Does Alice have any ideas before I call a service?
October 24, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Alice is a great fan of the wonders of vinegar (see the post “She Walks” for evidence). So I looked around and found this: http://www.ehow.com/how_5116324_clean-rugs-vinegar.html
I hope it works.
October 24, 2011 at 10:20 pm
I love this post. Alice is awesome. Always has been, always will be…
October 24, 2011 at 10:37 pm
Thanks, Katie.
October 24, 2011 at 10:43 pm
I must be related to your mom… maybe some day Alice and I can share repair/invention stories
October 24, 2011 at 10:46 pm
I would love that, Alan. Maybe next time you’re in Portland.
October 25, 2011 at 2:07 am
What a marvellous tale. Alice could give our own, Aggie and Kim, a run for their money!
I have a friend who once sniffed a bottle of drain-cleaner, found in the cleaning cupboard on a Spanish holiday, to see if it was suitable for carpet cleaning – nearly killed her!
The skull and cross bones should have warned her of course.
October 27, 2011 at 10:55 am
This makes me curious about the smell of carpet cleaner. Is it really that distinctive? I might go sniff some next time I’m at the grocery store. By the way, Alice is disappointed with how the carpet looked the next day – not so clean as she’d hoped. So Aggie and Kim reign (if only in England).
October 25, 2011 at 6:51 am
I love Alice’s pioneer spunk, getting something done with what you have on hand…no wonder she’s in her 9th decade!
October 27, 2011 at 10:55 am
Exactly right, Kerry. Resourcefulness (on all sorts of levels) has a lot to do with sticking around.
October 25, 2011 at 11:37 am
Best story ever -VERY inspiring. Love the picture of her dropping things on the rug that are then fixed..wish that worked for me!
October 27, 2011 at 10:57 am
Diane, have you actually tried this method? I was thinking of doing it with an old tape recorder that only works intermittently. But then I thought that if I dropped it and banged it on the floor it might never work again. Risky business.
October 26, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Great story! Alice sure is a character – as we would say here in Ireland – it’s a very complimentary and affectionate label by the way
I was reminded of a character I knew today, my Uncle Matt. I was chatting about donkeys with my neighbour (as you do) and was reminded of my Uncle Matt whose main forms of transport were his trusty old bicycle and his donkey and cart.
He sometimes worked as a night doorman for a hotel about 10 miles from home and he used the donkey and cart for this trip. The reason being that the donkey knew the way home so well that he could just put his feet up and relax. Perhaps his version of a relaxing foot bath?
Must go look for some duct tape now…
October 27, 2011 at 11:01 am
I think being a “character” is complimentary here, too (among the people I hang out with anyway).
That donkey, I would guess, has a few stories to tell about Uncle Matt. Maybe one day he’ll have his own blog, do you think?
October 28, 2011 at 9:07 am
It’s inspiring to think of Alice with her tool kit…I asked for one for Christmas when I was in college. It took my dad 4 or 5 years to get used to the idea that I could actually use tools, but eventually, I got a “Ladies’ Mate” kit in blue molded plastic. (My mother said she had to talk him out of getting the pink one.) I still have those tools, and they are off-limits to the boy in the house! So happy to know that Alice was blazing trails LONG before me, and that ingenuity never goes out of style!
October 28, 2011 at 11:57 am
I’ve never heard of “Ladies’ Mate.” Oh those marketers! Still, I’m envious. My own tools are a mess in a green plastic bin. It requires great patience to find what I need when I need it.
October 28, 2011 at 6:11 pm
Alice could write an advice column! Who else combines sensuous pleasures like foot soaks with practical needs like stain removal? The woman is a wonder, as are you, her creative scribe.
October 28, 2011 at 8:11 pm
What I’m hoping is that the foot soak doesn’t (sooner or later) stain the skin. I’m trying to discourage further adventures with Efferdent, but what are my chances?