Occasionally I’d like to share some of the mini-features of our apartment—the little touches that make our apartment a home. Not all of our little bonus items are useful for anything other than visual fun, but quite a few of them actually have a use beyond French-word-for-little-art-things.
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The Amazing Toilet Paper Swivel Arm This appeared one day about a month back, after RocketMan had added one of His Famous Shelving Units to the bathroom wall. While not everyone might have a conveniently-placed shelf to which to attach the ATPSA, this idea works just as well for paper towels, dishtowel racks, or anything else that should be hidden but accessible. Here’s what he did, as far as I can tell: went to a Ajax Plumbing over on Fillmore to find pipes, joints, and a flange (the anchor) for the shelf; screwed in the flange and attached the pipes; put the orange cap on the end; and slipped on the toilet paper. All in all, about $10, and it’s pipes, so it’ll last pretty much forever. It doesn’t get much easier than that. The beauty part, of course, is that it swivels neatly back into place under the shelf when it’s not in use, pretty well hidden from everyone who isn’t sitting on the toilet. The real test, of course, will be when RocketBaby gets to be somewhat mobile and decides to play “Toilet paper swings out, toilet paper swings in,” for a half hour. But that’s at least 18 months away. |
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Return of the Toaster Before you ask, yes, that’s Luke Skywalker trapped in the top of the toaster. I don’t know how he got there, but he’s wearing his Tatooine outfit, so pre-Jedi training, anything could’ve happened to that little scamp. Standing guard at the side is Mon Mothma, one of the most excellent action figure finds ever, I must say. She was a senator, and her big scene was in “Return of the Jedi,” when she said, sadly, “Many… Bothans… died… to bring us this information.” She was found in the bottom of a shoebox at WonderCon, and I screamed “MANY BOTHANS DIED! IT’S HER!” and RocketMan wouldn’t believe me until I googled her and proved that we had, indeed, acquired the toy necessary to play Debate The Chandrilan Stimulus Package. Anyway, I bought this toaster for $4 at a Goodwill about seven years ago, for no other reason than I liked it. After one nostril-burning attempt to turn it on, I gutted the insides (the handiest thing I’ve ever done) and it’s been either of a tchotchke or a something-or-other holder ever since. I think it’s found its true calling in its most recent incarnation, which is as a wire-hider. We slid the cell phone and iPod chargers up through the innards, out the top, and now the toaster has a use beyond anything it could have imagined in 1976. Although it would be a bit familiar with the square thing on top—it’s a 21st-century version of rabbit ears. (BTW, the digital box? AWESOME. Tripled the number of channels we have, perfected our reception, and we still don’t have cable!) |
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