Deb's Domestic Do's

Disclaimer: I have not received any monetary compensation from any company mentioned in this post. Should they offer, you will all be the first to know.

Welcome everyone, to today's installment of Deb's Domestic Do's, in which Deb gives you helpful household hints using absolute avalanches of alliteration.

While other household hint-types may tell you completely useless things like how to explode ants and remove candlewax from your carpet (someone had a fun weekend, am I right?), my household hints are completely useful and relevant to the modern household.

Today's hint: So You've Accidentally Washed Your iPod Nano...Now What?

A few weeks ago, I couldn't find my iPod. This was a crisis of semi-nuclear proportions; if Princess and Dexy don't get to listen to "Witch Doctor" (from Alvin & the Chipmunks), "Dance Magic Dance" (from Labyrinth), "Johanna" (from Sweeney Todd), and "Dancing With Myself" (from the '80's), we cannot get anywhere, so it was absolutely imperative that I find my precious iPod.

It wasn't in my purse.

It wasn't in my shoes (Dexy's favorite hiding place).

It wasn't having breakfast in the dollhouse (Princess' favorite hiding place).

That left one option: the washer.

When at work, I usually keep my keys in my right pocket and my phone (set to silent) in my left. When using my iPod, I put it in the pocket with the phone. For some reason, on that particular day, my phone made it back to my purse, but my iPod did not.

So there I was, soggy iPod in hand, on the phone to Sven, who had this helpful hint:

"Put it in the dryer."

Thanks, Sven.

So I took it to work, where I thought about how I could dry out an admittedly fresh-smelling iPod. I was leafing through my desk drawer in a desultory way, happy I had finally used "desultory" in my inner monologue, when I saw it:

My Excedrin graveyard.

I have migraines fairly often, and have found nothing works as effectively at derailing the migraine process than two Excedrin. Due to this, I always have a bottle of Excedrin in my desk drawer, and being the semi-slob that I am, older bottles get pushed to the back of the drawer rather than thrown away.

Each of these bottles was empty, except for that little cylinder that keeps the pills dry: the desiccant capsule.

I took about four of those bad boys and put them in a snack-size ziploc bag with my iPod, rolled it up, and left it in my drawer for a couple of days.

Today, my iPod is as good as new.

So, my helpful household hint: when you get those little desiccant packets or capsules, save them. Maybe take a big prescription pill bottle, or just a ziploc bag, and fill it up. (Keep it out of reach of children! The last thing you need is dried children!) Anytime you have an electronic device such as a cell phone, iPod, remote control, etc. get washed or dunked, give the Deb method a try.

Of course, you won't have the justification to ask for a new one this Christmas. I never said it was a perfect system.