To be totally fair to Willy Wonka, at least a couple of those candy factory casualties involved kids deliberately circumventing reasonable safeguards, sometimes aided and abetted by the parents who were supposed to be supervising them. What happened is at most 60% his fault.
something that really bothers me when people discuss natural selection is when people ask questions along the lines of, “why aren’t all turtles extinct if they’re so slow and dumb” and “if neanderthals are superior to gorillas, then why are neanderthals extinct?”.
Like these are such misled questions that you’d have to answer completely different, unasked questions to actually help the person understand, but it also belies a really unfortunate fact about the history of evolutionary science and how natural selection was once, and for a really long time, studied as if evolution is a battle between superiors and inferiors. and this framework was developed for the purpose of economic and sociopolitical gain, and to justify bigotry toward marginalized peoples, and this framework still permeates how people teach and learn about natural selection. it worries me a lot!
Gather ‘round kids: I had a coworker mention to me this morning that it’s impossible to get grease stains out of fabric. As a former chemistry minor who worked two years under the table doing housekeeping and who generally tends to be a fucking disaster, I am here to tell everyone that it absolutely is not impossible, in case this is a widespread belief. Here are a few of my favorite cleaning stain removers that I always have at home.
Here are some options:
A Tide™ pen.
I’m a generic kinda lady. I hate promoting brands 99% of the time. BUT if you catch absolutely any kind of stain before it gets ground in, you can get most of it out with one of these babies. I’ve tested it on blood, chocolate, coffee, guacamole, pizza sauce, red wine on, on that one time i accidentally slopped some oil I was supposed to be using on antiques onto a fancy rug (also an antique but not the one I was gunning for). If you’re washing something delicate, pump it onto your finger a couple of times and gently rub it in. I’m not sure what they put in these things but I’m pretty sure it’s an arcane secret.
Dish soap
Granted, this is a little trickier for upholstery/carpet, but it can still be done using a rag, some water, and some patience. But for clothing, just pour some soap on the stain and rub it in under cold running water.
Absolutely any clear alcohol is your new best friend
You know the old “white wine to clean red” trick? Well, this is its updated sister I like to call “you, too, can use coconut rum to get red jello shot out of your nice white dress”. It’s a nice party trick. Straight vodka works even better. For every day situations involving any kind of alcohol-related spills (including markers)–and especially work situations–rubbing alcohol is ideal. To quote another adage, this one from every chemistry teacher you will ever meet, “like dissolves like.”
Hydrogen Peroxide
It can get blood out of absolutely anything, including your mattress. It reacts with the iron in hemoglobin, which breaks down the molecule, causing it to lose its red color. So make sure you’re not using a cast iron skillet to wash your period underwear in.
Vinegar
This will dissolve lime buildup overnight. Fill a bag, tie it around your showerhead, and presto. You can also use it to scrub the area around your sink and to break up any buildup in pipes. (Limeaway™ is for rich people.)
Baking soda
This is great if you have a pet or child who peed on the carpet. Just cover the area, wait until it dries, and vacuum it up. The longer you leave it, the better it will do at removing the smell. It’s also good removing mild odors from a small space, like a fridge or a laundry hamper.
Charcoal
This is your heavy duty odor killer. A little goes a long way. In chemistry, activated charcoal is used as a purifier in reactions, and in medicine, it can be used to treat mild poisoning/overdoses. In your car that smells like someone died because you forgot you had potatoes in the trunk for six months? All you need are regular old charcoal briquettes. Stick a couple handfuls in a flat box and the smell will be gone overnight. Guaranteed. For larger areas, just use more charcoal.
Baking soda is also good for stuff stuck on pots pans and your stove top. Add a little bit of water and elbow grease and it’s like magic
Baby shampoo will get oil stains out of clothing even if it’s been washed and dried several times. Shampoo is formulated to remove oil from organic stuff.
Fabric cleaning tips. good to know for sewers.
I had this really vivid dream last night that was set in this futuristic facility. It had wide open spaces and labs, like if Fringe took place in the Star Wars universe. There was this young boy (I think. It was a child anyway) who the facility had either created in a lab, was performing experiments on, or both. There was an older man who was helping him evade the authorities after he escaped. Then something happened to him and suddenly I was an active player in the dream.
I think I was a bit older than I am now, late 30s maybe. I came across the guy in charge who was trying to get the boy back. He was a lot like the bad guy in the Shape of Water only kind of uglier. I shot him a couple times. What I now realize was a bit odd given the setting, is that our guns had real bullets.
He got in a torso shot on me. I knew others were coming and like, I knew it was a wound I wasn’t likely to survive but I also suddenly sort of knew I was in a Story and I was thinking “oh OK so this is my character arc. I’m going to get this boy to safety but die in the process. Well. Okay. At least I get a good death scene.”
Note, I wasn’t an actor in a movie. Like if a character in a novel or a movie suddenly realized they were a character in a story. Like if Sirius Black was falling through the arch and suddenly realized he was about to bite it for Harry’s character development and was like
BAKING – stick to the recipe (you can usually adjust sugar content to taste, though)
BREAD – wait for the right weather conditions (or engineer them), be one assertive and self-confident motherfucker because dough can feel it if you aren’t, a blood sacrifice probably helps, trust the gods
PASTRY – your God is dead, the god of gluten and madness is risen, abandon all hope ye who enter here
The Paradox Machine 