There is a smart way to do things and there is a dumb way to do things…. Then there is the Dave way.

Dad always had a saying. There is a smart way to do things and a dumb way to do things. I’ve seem to found a third way, the Dave way.

This usually involves not only doing something the dumb way but on occasion making whatever task I am doing even harder and more painful than it really should have been.

Case in point was last night. We had received a package of some, well lets just say, “stuff” that was covered in cosmoline to protect it from rust. For those who don’t know cosmoline is a petroleum product that is generally liberally slathered on metal parts before they are put into long term storage. It’s really great at protecting against rust. It’s also a real pain in the backside to clean off of whatever it’s been applied to.

After spending some time researching different methods of cleaning cosmoline on the internet I picked one that I thought should work and be fairly easy. I did discard the recipes involving gasoline and open flames. I may be a little crazy but I am not that crazy! Everyone seemed to agree mineral spirits would just dissolve the cosmoline away and leave the metal clean and shiny with a minimum of fuss and mess. Of course I had to do things, the Dave way.

Rather than take time to change into my grubby yard-work clothes and find a pair of rubber gloves I decided it wouldn’t take long to clean this stuff up. Oops! That turned out to be a rather painful mistake.

I had 24 items to clean with an original plan of cleaning my friends stuff for him also. That didn’t quite happen.

Who knew that 3 hours of bathing your hands in mineral spirits and cosmoline would make them feel like they did? It was kind of a cross between having strong acid and molten lava poured on them and then being hooked up to 220 volts AC. Of course by morning though my hands are pretty much back to normal, I do though, have this new twitch in the neck, not really sure just where it came from…

Let’s just say, lesson learned.