Tuesday, March 2, 2010

MacGyvering It Up

MacGyver - a secret agent who used not brawn, not fancy technological gadgets, but his BRAINS to get himself out of trouble.  Granted, some "MacGyverisms" are better than others....I saw one episode where he and his newly found son get trapped in a pit and manage to use fire extinguishers strapped to their backs to propel themselves upwards...But honestly, it must be hard to think of new tricks every week, and this was one of the later episodes.  So cut poor old MacGyver some slack.

I fancy myself a bit of a MacGyver.  I mean, I don't typically need to disarm bombs with paper clips or use my bicycle tire as a slingshot, but I enjoy the challenge of using the things around me to solve a problem at hand.  I think my first personal "MacGyverism" was at age five, when I was too short to reach the cabinet with the glassware. I found a long spoon to stick in the edge of the door and pry it open, then climbed up on the counter to retrieve a glass.

Ok, so there technically were chairs available which could have been dragged over...but I fancied myself pretty clever because this method was silent and allowed the opportunity to drink Kool Aid undetected.  Ugh.  Kool Aid.  Way too sugary for me now.

But I digress.

Last night's MacGuyverism was a bit more impressive.  I can't find my knee and elbow pads for broomball anywhere, and I have unfortunately learned the hard way that they are most definitely required.  (I hope to regain full movement in my knee someday...but I am beginning to think it may not ever happen.)  So, no knee pads.

Plan A: Don't fall.

Plan B:  Use foam intended for packing plates and glassware into moving boxes as knee pads.  Connect packing foam to knees using plastic bags, ripped into strips and poked through foam using keys as hole-pokers.

Check and Mate. (But sorry Tiff, I think that packing foam is unusable for its original purpose - turns out plastic foam is really sweaty on the knees.)

Luckily, Plan A was successful.  I only fell on my ass and we all know I got plenty o' padding there, thank you very much.  I think my mom let me have too much Kool Aid when I was a kid.

2 comments:

Liz Baer said...

Ha! I remember using the long handled spoons to open the cabinet doors too! But I was not smart enough to climb on the counter to get something out then, so I just pulled up a chair anyway, which would actually defeat the whole purpose of the spoon...

Tiffany said...

Also don't forget how you used the railing for the top bunk to turn off the light at night instead of climbing down....very McGyver