Inexpensive Solutions To Challenges

Your mission: Find easier ways to live. There are two ways to do it. One, go out and buy the product to make it easier. Two, design and build it yourself. Guess the road I took.

My freshman year in college, I finally found the way to put on my own shoes. I put holes in the ends of the Velcro straps. Slipped into the shoes and then pulled the straps tight using a stretched wire hanger.

Not being able to reach my feet has caused many problems. The last challenge is clipping my own toe nails. When looking for attendants to help with a few things around the apartment, I lose so many when I tell them I need my toenails clipped once a month.

What’s so bad about toenails? I’ve used the normal resources to find something that would work for me. Catalogs, hospitals and friends, nothing seemed to be the answer. One or two options were expensive and I wouldn’t know if they’d work until I bought them. I would have to order them through a catalog, have them shipped and then pay to have them shipped back if they didn’t work.

If you look at any of my old pairs of socks, you’ll find holes where the toes should be. Besides having free air conditioning, I have to go out and buy some new ones. I can tell my toenails were getting longer again. I need to find a solution.

First thing I need is a toenail cutter. Got that. The question, how to get it by my toes and how to make it cut. I’ve heard, but never saw, an electric toenail cutter. Cute idea, but probably pretty expensive.

My idea was much simpler. I went to the hardware store, bought a two foot length of a two by ten inch board and some tacks and nails.

Along the long side of the board, I placed the toenail cutter with it sticking off the side just a bit. I then hammered a nail through the hole on the other end of the toenail cutter and bent the nail to secure.

The clipper could still swing from side to side, so I took two tacks and nailed them in place on either side. After giving the top a couple of pushes from side to side, the toenail clipper was secured. Now for the real test.

I dropped the new tool onto the ground and slid one of my toenails into the jaws of invention. With the bottom of my other foot, I pressed down and heard a loud snap. No, it wasn’t a bone being broken, but a toenail snapping off. Once a challenge, now just another daily living task at a very low cost.

Speaking of challenges overcome, I’ve found a way around another one recently too. One thing I’ve always hated are those darn twist caps on bottles. I just don’t have the hand strength to open them.

I went to the hardware store to find a new weapon of choice. This time it was a simple pair of vise grips. With a seven inch opening, it can easily wrap around a twist top.

While sitting, I place the bottle between my legs. I lock the vise grip on the cap and twist it in the counterclockwise direction. The cap gives under the pressure and I can drink to my heart’s content without asking someone else to open it.

Two choices to overcome a challenge, I took the one more difficult. Today I am more independent than I have ever been. Bring on the next challenge!