3 Bad Uses for 3 Old Things

While New Uses for Old Things is a column targeted toward Classics, I sometimes wonder if some creative Organics or Smarts are just making stuff up. I mean really! I love Real Simple like it was my annoying older sister that I didn’t have, but sometimes these solutions are far fetched if not damaging!

Binder clips to keep your linen/cotton napkins in order. Okay I’m not even a Classic or a Fun, meaning I don’t usually pay attention to details and even I could tell you that these binder clips are going to leave a mark. (And strangely I worry that if you got some water on them by accident they might rust and then stain the napkins) Also, um, why not just organize them together when you put them away! Why would you even need binders?

Using crushed eggshells to clean the hard-to-reach places in bottles and vases. Um, yeah, how does this work exactly? Do I wait till I’m making scrambled eggs to clean all the vases? Or why don’t I just, um, throw them in the DISHWASHER. Novel. Or just use the baby bottle cleaner that sits beside my sink. There IS a better way and eggshells ain’t it.

Lemonade Kool-Aid to clean the lime deposits and iron stains inside your dishwasher. First, you can only use lemonade Kool-Aid and why exactly would you even have lemonade Kool-Aid on hand? I mean, wouldn’t you just have Minute-Maid or Country-Time and do those work just as well? (It says that the citric acid in the mix wipes out the stains, so maybe?) All right, if that’s the case then perhaps this is just a cheaper alternative to whatever lime deposit/iron stain cleaner there is out there? But let me tell you, my dishwashers tend to break down irreparably WAY before they’ve gotten to the lime/iron deposit stage.