Hints from Heloise

September 14, 2006

When I was in junior high school my best girlfriend and I enjoyed reading “Anne Landers”, the “funnies”, and “Hints from Heloise” in the daily newspaper. Housewives could send their favorite home making tips to Heloise. If your tip got published, you got a dollar. That was big money in those days.

We never sent in any hints or got the dollar but there was one hint that I thought was particularly clever and I still use it to this day. First you need a der-der. You know, when you were a kid and you played with an empty paper towel tube? You put your mouth on one end and say, “Der-der-der” into it. I didn’t make up the name. I read it somewhere, and it fits because that’s exactly what we used to do with a paper towel tube. It made a great army bugle, spyglass, and many other things. You could put the hamster in it or cover it with Christmas wrapping paper and sequins and make a tree ornament (my mother and I actually did this and I still have one).

Anyway, you know how you collect lots of plastic produce bags and they pop out of the drawer every time you open it? Well, the der-der is a plastic bag storage unit. Stuff the bags in, bottom end first so you don’t get air caught inside. One der-der will hold many bags. They line up in the drawer quite nicely and voy-oh-lay – no more messy drawer.

Real Sim*** magazine just came out with a similar idea using empty tissue boxes. That’s a clever idea but I think the der-der works best because it dispenses the bags one at a time. That’s high-tech engineering, folks. These days you can buy cloth tubes made with pretty fabrics that have a handy loop that you can hang them from. I bought a couple a few years back but they have disappeared and I still have the cardboard tubes in my kitchen drawer.

(Note: I realized that if I use brand names or celebrity names, my blog post shows up on a search results list for that person or product. Imagine my surprise when I found out that my less than complimentary comments on a famous Food Netw*** chef showed up on Goog**…. I’m a genius.)

Comments

[Rosanna]

On my first read-through I thought you said you put hamsters in them and then cover it up as a Christmas decoration. Glad to see I misread! But seriously, I have always just thrown out produce bags. It never occurred to me to find a use for them. I will have to think about that one.

[Carolyn]

I think that's a great idea. I save the shopping bags. I wonder if those will fit? I throw away the produce bags, too. You and your West Coast recycling ideas! Saving produce bags! :)