Duh No. 14: One Less Stamp

For years I have been placing my DVDs into small DVD envelopes and inserting them in folded cardstock so they would not move around before putting them into greeting card envelopes and mailing them. The weight consistently was more than one ounce. So the cost was calculated at two ounces (two Forever stamps), plus an extra twenty cents for having a rigid object in the envelope. Today I decided to apply a piece of double stick tape to the back of the small DVD envelope to preclude its moving around in the mail. Today I did not need a piece of cardstock. DUH – To my surprise, the entire envelope weighed exactly one ounce. I saved the cost of an extra forty-six-cent stamp. Over the years, assuming I mailed fifty DVDs, at forty-five cents a stamp, I could have saved twenty dollars.

Duh No. 15: The Pool Hose

The plastic return hose that comes from my roof’s solar panels originally was bent when I set it up a year ago.  I fastened a three-pound.  hand weight to it to keep it in the pool. This week while gazing at the slightly rusted bungee cord that held the hand weight, I decided to release the weight. DUH. The hose was straight. No need for a weight. I don’t even want to think about how long that hose was straight.

Duh No. 16: The Pool Net

Ever since my skimmer broke last year, I have been using a hand net, while in the pool, to skim debris from the top of the pool. After several minutes of skimming with the net, my hand gets tired because the resistance from the water pushes against the net. Last week, for some reason, my hand did not get tired. I looked at what I was doing.  DUH. I saw that only the top part of the net was skimming the water, thereby significantly decreasing the water resistance! DUH, I thought again, why would I ever want to skim the surface of the water by submerging the net as I had been doing. No wonder I did not do well in my physics courses.

Mr. Ebsen may be contacted at robertebsen@hotmail.com