Things I’ve learned

I’ve learned a number of miscellaneous things during my life. Here are a few that have come to mind recently.

• It’s difficult to get out of a used bookstore without buying something. It’s easier in a “regular” bookstore because everything costs more there.
• Nails with polish grow faster than unpolished nails. They just do. Don’t ask me why.
• People have bigger feet now than in my generation. I know this because all the good size 9’s tend to be gone if I wait too long.
• All shoes look cute when they’re size 5. They look very different in size 9.
• Hair will stick to everything.
• Hair sticks best anywhere you can’t see it.
• Hair sticks best to things of contrasting colors.
• The computer is always able (and often willing) to do something you don’t want to do or that you don’t know how to change or get rid of once the computer’s done it.
• Laundering Kleenex is easier than laundering money, but they both have messy results.
• If you set a bottle down, put the lid on tightly even if you think the bottle’s out of the way. The risk of knocking over the bottle (no matter where it is) is inversely proportionate to how tightly the lid is on the bottle. (Tight lid, low risk; no lid, bottle’s going over.)
• A few people are your “friends” simply and solely because they’re married to someone you really like.
• Everyone you meet is your superior in some way. Very useful for keeping things in proportion.
• That means you’re superior to everyone in some way. Useful for not getting an inferiority complex.
• You will almost always get a phone call when you are as far away from the phone as possible. My husband is a master of this, so much so that I sometimes wonder if he has CCTV in our house.
• Mice must be contortionists because they can get in anywhere.
• If they get in, mice will eat anything.
• Mice like peanut butter better than cheese. That’s good because peanut butter is cheaper and stays on the trap better.
• You can get a mouse out of the trap and into a plastic bag without ever touching it.
• If water sits around, it will get into somewhere you don’t want it to be. Or it will become a mosquito apartment complex. Either one is bad.
• If you don’t save your work on the computer regularly, you will lose something you didn’t want or couldn’t afford to lose.
• The best time to see a misspelled word in an email is when you’ve just hit “Send”.
• Tomato and tea will stain almost anything and are nigh to impossible to get out.
• Children’s songs stick in your head forever. Perhaps you should sing all your advice to your children…or have Sharon, Lois and Bram sing it.