Tiny victories

Yesterday I finished revising an article in response to some reviewer comments, a process that did not make me feel the slightest bit clever in any way. (Why is this experience always so extremely vile? I always wind up feeling like a horrible scholar and hopeless dunce, and wanting to stab myself in the eye.) Today, though, I am a genius.

Me: "What's a good general term for using some object for something other than its intended purpose?"

Steve: "Well, if you're Cory Doctorow..."

Me: "No, not 'hack'."

Anyway, I bought a new pair of sandals last week because it turns out that boots and thick socks, as delightful as they may be, are not really ideally suited to all weather. I was pretty pleased with the sandals when they arrived (heaven forbid I should shop for anything in person)—they fit properly and seemed to strike a decent balance between being comfortable and not being too desperately unstylish.

The only trouble was that some glitch in the construction of one shoe, or of my foot, meant that there was a hard, poky edge that jabbed me right in the ankle with every step.

Ow. I didn't want to return them, though, because they were almost perfect, and besides, returning them would require a trip to the post office. Horror. No.

Instead, in my tiny act of brilliance for the day, I took some of this kind of stuff

...which sticks to itself but not to anything else, and wrapped a small strip around the offending strap. Success! The bit of bandage holds the nasty biting corner in place where it can't hurt anything, without gumming up either the shoe or my foot with adhesive. Plus the tail of the strap hides it all, so I'm not sporting the shoe equivalent of duct tape on the bridge of my eyeglasses.

 

What minor works of genius have you committed lately?

(This also reminds me of that perennially fresh topic of discussion, the invention of feeble superpowers. For a long time I felt that my fourth-rate superpower should be the ability to pickle things instantly, a power conceived of one day when I had cucumbers in the house and wanted a kosher dill. A much more powerful superpower recently invented at our house is the ability to shoot superheroes out of one's eyes. Now that's super! No comic books seem yet to have made use of it, however. A curious oversight.)

Comments

[adriana]

I love the sandals. I like that it's open toe without exposing too much of the toe, you know what I mean?

[LizardBreath]

Mysterious hard poky bits on new shoes can often be filed down to smoothness with an emery board, if you had one about the house.

[Mum]

Do the superheroes come shooting out of your eyes, or do you gaze at them, and they die at once, but ordinary people are unscathed?

[redfox]

Adriana: Not only do I know what you mean, it is EXACTLY what I had been telling Steve I specially liked about them around five minutes before you commented.

LB: Clever! I of course have several emery boards, for the purpose of not filing my baby's fingernails.

Mum: The superheroes come shooting out of your eyes. ZAP! SUPERHERO'D!

[ben]

It's funny because Doctorow is himself a hack.

I suggest "off-label", after the practice of prescribing pharmaceuticals for uses for which they are not approved.

[Ray Davis]

It's been a while, but my last stroke of complete genius was negotiating a fair conclusion to the banana peeling war (coincidentally egged on by Cory Doctorow). If you prefer bananas on the underripe side, pinching from the bottom is fast and tidy whereas trying to snap the top will lead to a fruitless wrestling match. If you prefer bananas on the overripe side, snapping the top is fast and tidy whereas trying to pinch from the bottom will smear you with nasty black seedy goo. No need to argue, fellas, just choose your bananas wisely.

[ben]

NO. Pinching the bottom is always correct! I have video to prove it!

My last stroke of complete genius involved unix domain sockets! It was (to be honest) fairly trivial, actually, but I still find it satisfying.