If you haven’t noticed, the Internet is awash in how-to articles. I stumbled across a few gems the other day: “How to make a candle at home,” for those who don’t know how to flip a light switch; “How often to clean your dryer lent,” Answer: When you can’t shut the door or smell smoke; and “How to play Wordle, but look like you’re doing work,” which is actually kind of handy.
But with all the problems in the world, why aren’t so-called “experts” writing about useful topics we can actually use? How-to articles about things we might actually need. For instance, why isn’t anyone tackling these pressing topics:
• How do you get your dog to stop shedding? I came downstairs the other morning when the early morning light was starting to crack through the French doors and light up my pecan-colored floors. I gasped.
“Honey!” I called out. “When did we install carpet?”
It wasn’t carpet. It was a 3-inch-thick bed of dog hair coating the floor. The dog was in her bed scratching. A stream of hair flew off her like a snowblower and circulated about the house. Yet, her coat always is full and ready to shed more. Should we make her wear a smock? Or shave her? How about an article to cover this?
• How do you get your child to clean up a spill WELL? “Well” is the key word there. She knows to “clean” up spills. She takes a wet sponge and then smears it all over the counter. This produces a sticky mess twice the size of Iceland across the counter. Plus, now it’s running down the sides of the cabinets. That part she has down pat. But what about doing it the right way? How do you teach a 16-year-old this?
• How do you buy a frying pan? Have you tried this recently? Once upon a time, if you needed a new frying pan, you had two choices: 1) a cast iron skillet like the first settlers caried out West to hit marmots over the head with or 2) some polished stainless steel. But today, the possibilities and options are endless. Sizes. Uses. Coatings. There aren’t just non-stick pans, but any number of types and qualities. It’s maddening. And every single one tells you not to buy the competitor’s coating since the harmful chemicals will leach into your food and cause your family to grow extra (but not usable) limbs. I’ve done more research into safe non-stick pans than NASA did to land a man on the moon. In the end, I decided to go with the 150-year-old cast iron skillet that comes pre-caked in rust.
• How do you wash a car and not go full nuclear explosion when you find muddy cat prints tracked all over the hood, windshield and roof the next morning? It looked like a whole pack of cats got up there and took ballroom dance lessons. I imagined entire dance numbers from “West Side Story.” In clear defiance of gravity, there were even pawprints up and down the car doors.
• How do you pick new luggage? I can’t remember the last time I bought luggage, but when I did, I selected a suitcase that held clothes. That was the single requirement. But today luggage has turned high-tech and “smart.” I saw a suitcase that could go all-terrain. One that included a portable charging station or that could dispense seltzer water. There was another that could navigate airport checkins on its own and write your postcards. Not a one could figure out how to get home if accidentally sent to Omaha, but a few could serenade you with native music from the country you’re visiting.
• How do you find the will to properly clean your grill? I don’t mean a little occasional scraping with your 42-year-old grill brush that no longer has any wire bristles. I mean the manufacturer-recommended heavy-duty cleaning that is required to eliminate heavy build-up of grease and charred bits that threaten to ignite a city-wide fireball or poison you with a toxic stew of chemicals. I know I need to do it. I know the risks every time I use it, but I just can’t bring myself to do anything more than give it a quick brush with my brushless-brush.
• And mainly because you don’t have the will to properly clean your grill, how do you stop one of the neighborhood opossums from climbing into your grill to lick the pan drippings? The other night I heard a racket coming from the back porch. I went out to see what the fuss was, opened up the propane cabinet door and was met by the gaze of a opossum in mid-lick. “Uh … this isn’t what it looks like,” his face seemed to say. He began to slowly crawl out the backside of the grill the same way he came in. He must do a lot of grill licking because he was about the size of small horse, and at one point on his way out he got stuck. He turned to me with a look that seemed to say, “A little help here!” I closed the propane tank door and went back inside, hoping upon hope that someone had written a how-to article about freeing an obese varmint from a grill.