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“If It’s Stupid And It Works, It’s Not Stupid”: 61 Quick Fixes That Turned Out To Be Genius
Life is full of annoyances and sometimes you just don't have the energy to deal with everything thoroughly. That's when you decide to give 35% and just do something almost halfway. However, that doesn't mean that because a solution is quick and possibly dumb it's not going to work.
These people witnessed that with their own eyes. When the occasion called for it, they took action that might've seemed dumb, but worked wonders. They shared their stories in an online thread where a person asked: "'If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid.' What's a good example of this?" And, as it turns out, most of these solutions to problems weren't stupid at all.
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#1
Fake security cameras for a fraction of the cost of real security cameras but with a huge decrease in theft or vandalism.
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#2
I once used one of those drinking bird toys to keep a motion detector from turning the office lights off.
#3
Put onions in freezer for 5 minutes before you cut them, no more tears.
#4
They sent an order for a rover on Mars to hit itself with a shovel. It worked. Percussive maintenance.
#5
My dad fixing my car muffler with a soda can. I forgot about it until just now and I sold that car 5yrs ago.
#6
As college student had a [terrible] car. Wouldn’t crank and found the copper tab from the solenoid to the starter had broke, leaving a gap. Thought “copper.....pennies is copper” so jammed a penny in the gap and it started right up. For months I kept a cup holder full of pennies so I could crank the car.
#7
Only being able to spell beautiful by saying "be a u tiful". Same with Wednesday as "Wed nes day".
#8
Eating Cheetos/Takis with chopsticks to avoid Cheeto fingers.
Gingersnap In Iowa 3 minutes ago
See that's why I'd let Melvin lick my fingers in-between bites... just kidding!🤣
#9
One time my dad was cutting jalapenos and his hands were burning afterwards, so I told him to rub milk on his hands because "if it works on your tongue spicy it works on your hands spicy". It did.
#10
Pouring a bottle of coke down a clogged drain. It can work, surprisingly.
#11
The one I always hear is for pills you take twice a day.
If you forget constantly (some disorders just make that happen a lot), flip the bottle after you use it. At certain times of day it's upside down, at other times it isn't. If it's facing the wrong way, you forgot to take them.
Robert Trebor 1 hour ago
That's if you remember which way it is supposed to be. I'd forget my brain if it wasn't factory installed.
#12
We kept losing our stupid little Apple TV remote in the cushions of our living room furniture so I took a small rubber spatula and duct taped it to the remote. Haven't lost it since.
#13
I’ve got a sailboat, and we switched out the conventional style head (toilet) that had a holding tank to a composting head that’s like a fancy bucket that makes dirt. We had removed the holding tank, and were out sailing, when I hear my dad call for help down below.
It turns out that when we have heavy wind coming over the left side of the boat, the vent for our holding tank goes underwater, and it was just letting in lots of water. Dad’s there plugging it with his finger, but we need something to stop it up so he can get back above deck so we can actually sail.
Fortunately, we had drank some wine aboard a few nights prior, and the cork was still on the corkscrew. It fit the hole perfectly, and we figured “that’s good enough to get us back home so we can make a proper repair.”
That was 3 years ago, the cork’s still working great!
#15
Singing a nursery rhyme-type tune to remember the alphabet.
#17
If our guitar strings squeak when you slide up or down them, rub your fingertips on your nose and the oil makes the sliding silent.
#18
Underhand “granny” shot in basketball. Pretty sure it’s the most effective way to shoot free throws but nobody will do it for fear of looking silly.
#20
Placing used tires against your garage wall to cushion your front bumper from making potential impact in tight quarters.
#21
So one exam I gave recently there was a question about what kind of animal is Dugong and at that time I had absolutely no idea, so like the genius I am I thought of Dewgong the Pokemon and marked the answer and it was correct. So yeah, using Pokemon as animal check.
#22
In the florida keys, they have old cop cars on the side of the road to prevent speeding. Most of them don't have cops inside them, or engines for that matter. One of them actually had a mannequin dressed as a cop inside.
#23
A friend of mine was about to move to a new apartment. Neither new nor old apartment had a washing machine and it was a trek to the coin-op laundry.
They called up a local laundry service. The service came to the old apartment and picked up almost every bit of clothing, bedding, towels, etc they owned. The service washed, dried and folded it all. And delivered it back again.... **To the NEW address!!!**
Friend saved a bunch of effort moving it all, a ton of time doing the laundry and the total cost of the service wasn't much more than the cost of all the quarters for the coin-op machines and the detergent. And it made moving so much less stressful too.
This was in a big city with a lot of these laundry services. So YMMV. But it was beautiful and brilliant.
#24
If someone has the hiccups have them look right into your eyes. Repeatedly tell them to not look away from you and to tell you right before they are going to hiccup. Keep telling them that they must tell you the instant before they are about to hiccup. Usually within a minute the hiccups are gone and they are forever I’m your debt.
Note: don’t do this to strangers. They will just hiccup and tell you to get lost.
#25
When I was at Disney Land With my ex and one of her friends it was getting late in the sun was going down and we are going to watch with color. the right before the show started her friend decided that grizzly River rapids would be awesome to go on right now. -_- it was cold and I have no idea why people wanna go on water rides at night.
Anyways I worked at world of Disney at the time and had a early shift in the morning. The problem was I only owned one pair of black canvas vans that I could wear to work. If they got wet through took at least two days to dry. I tried to convince them that it would be more fun watching world of color and we already had fast passes, but no they wanted grizzly River rapids.
Right before we got on the ride though I had a brilliant idea induct into the store right next to the right entrance. I ran up to the counter and asked for two bags just to have. The cast member kindly obliged in which I proceeded to tie of each bag around my feet. The cast member looked on in awe and said "that's brilliant" my ex said was the dumbest thing she ever seen.
When we got off the ride we were pretty much soaked lucky I got the least amount of water but the raft did fill up with a lot of water. After we got off the cast member offering the ride ask me how my shoes were. I took the bags off and they were bone dry. My ex said "that's stupid" I said "it's not stupid if it works" :).
#26
I was doing a painting job for an elderly woman, and when I went to move the clock above the sink in the kitchen, lifting it from a nail on the end of a board that extended past a cabinet, the entire.. Thing mounting it up there fell apart. Upon closer inspection I could see that it was this random conglomeration of wood, tape, and an old whetstone. Fashioned into a perfectly shaped weight from which this wall clock had been hung.
I was kind of laughing at it, I mean it looked like something a well meaning toddler would have crafted, but then the old lady tells me that this thing had been assembled by her husband *50 years ago* when he built the kitchen. He'd slapped it together, always meaning to replace it, added the whetstone to weight it down, and slid the whole mess on top of the cabinet with a nail sticking out to hang the clock from.
He'd never gotten around to replacing it, and here we were now where it was still functioning just fine even a few years after his passing.
So I did the logical thing and put it back together. Taped up and hung the clock back on its nail. I figure he must have known something I don't to last that long.
#27
Instead of eating spaghetti with a fork and spoon, I use a fork and scissors.
Much quicker to just cut off the hanging spaghetti than twirl it up.
Surly Scot 1 hour ago
There's these awesome pearly scissor-like things already sitting in your jaw exactly for this purpose.
#28
My car motor mount is incredibly old so the previous owners wedged pieces of rubber between the motor and the motor case? (idk much about cars) and it gave the car and extra 7 yrs. My dad plans on shoving more rubber pieces in there.
#29
In the zoo keeping world it was zip ties and baling twine and if they couldnt fix it you really were up the creek. Occasionally you would just see pieces of baling twine tied places but you dare not touch it in case it's holding something important.
#30
My computer's screen has a lose connection so it only works if I get it at the right angle. Or as my stupid method I janed some paper in between the keyboard and screen slightly bending the screen part and it works. Don't ask me why it just does.
#31
Engineering story time - A toothpaste factory had a problem with empty boxes making it to packaging. They got the engineers working on a solution using mobile scales to flow along with the conveyor belt and eject the empty toothpaste boxes. Several months later, after testing and prototyping, they were ready to install the system.
At the one place in the conveyor line the unit would fit, they found a desktop fan sitting on a stool blowing the empty boxes into a laundry basket. The full boxes were too heavy to blow off the line.
#32
Had a projector that was mounted to the ceiling in a conference room and it would not stop jumping up and down when in use. I tightened everything and replaced the projector and mount to try and get it to stop. Well I installed “tension rods” to get it to stop moving. It was pens taped together and shoved in between the projector and ceiling. Haven’t heard a complaint from that room in months.
#33
Cutting pizza with scissors instead of a pizza slicer.
Robert Trebor 1 hour ago
I have a guillotine pizza cutter. Way easier to clean than scissors or rotating cutter
#36
In 1999, I built my first computer. I assembled everything and... it didn’t work. As in nothing happened when I pressed any buttons. I removed the motherboard from the case and placed it on my desk, thinking I’d try removing pieces of hardware on it one by one, to see what could be the culprit. But on first try, everything worked.
It turned out that the motherboard was too close to the backside of the tower case. No risers had been provided for either the motherboard or the tower case.
So I used kitchen roll to put between the case back and the motherboard - and it worked flawlessly.
Fast forward to 2004 where I gave the computer to my parents. My mum wanted a bigger harddisk, so I revisited it - and the kitchen roll seemed just fine so I just left it in place. In 2007, I bought a new computer for her - an all-in-one type.
TL;DR: I used kitchen roll to avoid short circuit on a motherboard due to the case back creating the short circuit. It worked for many years.
#37
Broken windshield wiper was temporarily fixed in the rain by tying a piece of scotch tape around it.
Worked so well I left it on for a month or so. My Dad tore it off while asking what is this.
I got new wiper blades.
#38
From what I remember reading, a Russian spacesuit uses what is essentially a rubber band to seal the suit. It goes back to the Russian mentality that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
#39
I saw a video of a man who was wearing a chain necklace sitting at a rest stop off of the interstate. Basically, something (im not smart car-wise)at the bottom side of his car fell off on one side. It was barely hanging on. he then asked the rest stop attendant if they had any rope- they didn't. He then crawled under his car and used his necklace to secure the part in place.
TL DR- "always carry the lock to your chain in your car".
#40
As a mechanic, I see a lot of these.
One of my favorites is seeing a spark plug used as a drain plug. Absolutely not what it was designed for, but it has a crush-washer so it seals properly and the threads line up.
#43
A coworker said her screens weren’t working. She has dual monitors and couldn’t get her mouse to go from one to the other. I sat at her desk... same issue.
Just before I get into her display settings, she bursts out “Oh wait! Maybe my monitors aren’t close enough” and proceeds to close the 3/4 inch gap between the screens. She is very blonde (blonde is a personality, not a hair color) so I didn’t laugh in her face.
As God as my witness, it immediately started working.
This was 5 years ago and still haunts me and everything I know about computers.
#44
I used to use a small, flexible bucket to plunge a clogged drain at a kitchen job by putting it upside down over the drain, holding it in place with my thumbs, and squeezing the sides until it started draining. The sink would clog nightly and either there was never a plunger in the first place or it was missing the entire time I worked there. One of the supervisors caught me and was mildly impressed.
#45
Standing up to bullies. It sounds like a dangerous thing to do in context, but the moment you answer back and refuse to let them rule the roost over you, they back away.
#46
Fix a leaking pipe with a pool noodle (cut a slit down the middle) and duck tape.
#47
I live in an area where it's hot almost year long, but one winter we had a cold snap. Our stores don't sell real ice scrapers because we don't ever need them, but this one year my wind shield froze. I had to go to the store and bought a spatula for $1 to use as an ice scraper. This was probably 4 years ago and it's still under my seat. Never been used since.
#49
I struggled for years with anemia no one could find the cause for. Kept getting really sick, and every iron supplement caused severe side effects. (Extreme constipation and gi bleeds)
After YEARS of trying to figure it out, the best solution was to take two children’s Flintstones with Iron. Works perfectly. After so many attempts at medical intervention about it, it turns out the thing that fixed it was a couple cheap kids vitamins that can be found at any drugstore.
#50
Me not knowing my times tables past 6x6
“6x6 is 36, plus 6”
“6 is made up of a 4 and a 2”
“6 plus 4 is 10, so now the total is 40, plus that 2 is 42”
I’ve been doing this for so long that you’d think I’d know by now that 6x7 is 42. But no.
I can literally do some Algebra II equations in my head- no problem, but still don’t know my times tables.
#51
The pythagorean theorem. It’s just stupid math, but somehow it works
a^2 + b^2 = c^2
it’s like something a five year old would come up with.
#52
If the code works, don't refactor it or you'll get like a week of extra work just trying to make it work again.
#53
My husband Jedi mind tricked me into staying the night our first date. I called him up to invite him to my law school’s casino night. Tickets came with drink tickets but he lived in LA and my school was in Orange County. Knowing this he invited me to drive to his place and he would be the DD. In my head I thought “great! DD!” So immediately agreed. However, after I hung up I realized I had just agreed to stay the night at his place (this was before Uber plus I lived 50 miles away from LA).
My husband points out this isn’t stupid. It was a simple mind trick but it totally worked.
#54
My friend owns an early 2000s F-150. We were driving around one night with only one headlight. Well it blew and we were driving around blind in the dark. So naturally, we got two 300ish lumen flashlights and duct taped them to the hood of the truck.
We drove around like that for another hour without any problems. His girlfriend bout had a fit when we got back. Freaking hilarious night.
#56
When you can't find the funnel so you roll up a piece of paper to add liquids to your engine.
#57
Depending on the vehicle, the dynex spring on the starter can snag up too. My old man took a hammer to the starter on his old Cadillac, first time he impressed my mum's dad.
#58
Watch hairsprings are notoriously difficult to manufacture, you have to take a wire and thin it down to a coiled blade thinner than a human hair: Once coiled they are difficult to separate without destroying them, Schwarz Etiennes solution was the tap the tube containing them, has a lower failure rate than any other way including vibrating them apart.
#60
Wrapping a food in foil very well and cooking/steaming it in the dishwasher. I did it with a couple chicken breasts and it turned out great.
#61
Ever wonder how tiny amounts of solid are measured out? I did until my PI handed me a pen cap. I laughed at first but honestly I still can't think of another way to measure 0.01 grams.
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