LET’S TALK : Low-cost bald-spot remedy ...
Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2008
How will Barack Obama handle all the problems he has to try to clean up after he sets foot in the White House ? That’s a question in the back, front, sides and center of everyone’s minds.
Too bad that he can’t fix them with a needle, a few small spools of thread in various colors and scissors. A dab of nail polish. A touch of spray paint. A tube of superglue or its more feminine counterpart, acrylic-fingernail glue. Or good ol’ duct tape.
These are only a few of the things in my jerry-rigging arsenal.
It’s ironic that, growing up poor, I’d cringe at my stepfather’s frequent conclusions that we were going to have to “patch” something up. And I vigorously hated the fact that he never went to mainstream people to have things repaired. He’d always go to the shade-tree people, who usually kept the item for at least six months before returning it... sometimes repaired, sometimes not.
Now that I’m middle-aged and still not rolling in money, fixing cosmetic defects has become a way of life. It’s not just because of name similarity that I’ve sometimes been called Heloise, the syndicated columnist and queen of helpful household hints. I’ve got plenty of my own hints: Are you rough on footwear ? Are your new shoes already marred by dings, scratches, streaks and driver’s foot rub-offs ? A little nail polish the color of the shoe can help. Or some spray paint. Or eyeliner. Or a grease pencil. Is your car riddled with automobile paint-job oopsies ? Now I know to tell you to go to your dealership’s parts department and buy a paint pen the exact color of your car. My old advice would have been to go to the auto-parts chain store — aka Jerry-Rig Central — find some spray paint that best matches your car, and spritz away... with results that will range from bad to hilariously bad. (The former Talkmobile, which was replaced in June, had been spray-painted numerous times. The paint matched at first, but later darkened, so the car eventually took on a dappled appearance. A co-worker owned an identical car, but her paint job had been freshened after a major repair. Seeking her car in the parking lot one day, she thought mine was hers. She almost had a coronary, poor dear. So, see, bad car-spraypaint jobs can potentially kill ).
Is your car’s cheap plastic dashboard cracking ? Duct-tape the entire thing. It won’t look so bad if you bother to find matching duct tape. Well, not really bad. Warning: If your steering wheel is also raggedy, don’t duct-tape it, lest the tape begin to fray and the adhesive begin to melt. Can’t have the inside of the car looking tacky, mind you. Buy a loud steering wheel cover instead. And just think of the fun new noises and words you’ll invent as you struggle to get that baby stretched enough to get around the wheel !
As a kid, were you so broke that you hand-sewed your own doll clothes ? Fast-forward to now when you find you have a knack for being too hard on clothes, have a talent for picking garments whose seams try to come undone right after purchase, or just can’t afford new clothes. Your doll clothes-making skills should have translated into some mean hand-mending skills.
True, clear nail polish keeps hosiery runs from getting worse. Guess what ? Colored polish can be used in a pinch, depending on the location of the run. And did you realize that spackling old, unwanted nail holes and other oopsies in walls can be downright therapeutic ? Don’t toss those favorite bedroom slippers just because the soles are beginning to crack. Get out the duct tape again. Look, you don’t wear the slippers outside anyway, so it doesn’t matter how the tape makes them look.
The craziest repair I’ve ever made in my life was to my own hair. At the turn of the century, when I sported a short Afro, I cut my hair with clippers. As those who use clippers know so well, slip ups can happen. One evening I accidentally shaved a small bald spot on the left-rear side of the Afro. No worries: I superglued the hair back into place. The glue stung a little, but the trick worked. (It’s all about whatever works. So stop your cackling. )
As the presidential inauguration approaches and the economy continues to tank, I can’t help but think of all the shade-tree repair people of yore. Perhaps I should find a shade tree and set up shop myself. Create and market the varied-item, HRW Do It Yourself Fix-It Kit.
Or offer to help the Prez patch up the country’s problems — at a bargain price of less than $ 700 billion — while permanent solutions are being thought out. Patch yourself through:
hwilliams@arkansasonline. com
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