Genius!

I would have to say that “Genius!” is one of the most used phrases in our house.  Now, there might be some debate as to whether or not you could consider it a phrase since it’s only one word (I had an internal debate over it before writing it), but I conclude that due to the message it conveys, it is in fact a phrase.  Also, I went ahead and referred to the “experts” at Wikipedia, and “a simple phrase consists of only one word.”
Usually, when I hear other people use the word “genius,” it is with a negative connotation, such as, “Hey, genius, the sign says ‘push’.”  Thankfully, in this household, it is almost always used positively to exclaim admiration for an idea we marvel at.  Most of these ideas probably do not come from Mensa members.  In fact, I’m pretty sure most of them come from Average Joes and Janes who either a) have a good deal of common sense, b) have a lot of knowledge and experience in a certain, specialized area, or c) are too lazy to go about doing things the conventional way and sometimes get lucky.  I’m not sure what that says about us — I suppose we must be very lacking in both common sense and specialized knowledge.  Oh well–we have a great deal of fun recognizing good ideas, and I thought you might enjoy some of them as well.
I’m going to start with an idea that I had a few weeks ago.  I was cleaning the garage (this has become my activity of choice when Pucci falls asleep in the car and I’m afraid of waking him up by moving him inside) and decided to change out the cardboard that catches the oil that leaks from our car.  While the cardboard was very helpful, there were still some oil spots on the concrete, and I was in some strange mood to get rid of them instead of just overlooking them as I usually do.  Rather than looking online or calling my dad to find out how to treat them, I decided to just look around the garage and see if I had anything that might work.  My real intent here was to put in some “effort”, but then just deal with it as usual when it didn’t work.  Well, I found some oven cleaner, which we always have plenty of since I only clean the oven when it’s time to move, and decided that if it works on oven grease it might work on car grease.  So, I sprayed some on, rubbed it around with an old sponge, and then rinsed it off with the garden hose — and it worked!  I got a “Genius!” from Christopher, and my mom gave me a “Smart Squirrel,” which is her applause phrase of choice.  Of course, my impromptu attempt still backfired a little bit: the foundation here is all whacked out, so when I hosed off the oven cleaner and oil, most of the water ran under the workbench shelves on the side of the garage instead of going out onto the driveway and into the street. 
Personally, I use “Genius!” quite often in the kitchen.  I recently bought some oven bags that were on clearance at Target.  I didn’t know there was anything special about them, besides their reduced price, until I actually used one to bake a chicken.  Now, my idea to use them to bake a chicken sprang from a “duuuhhhhhh” moment: I had just used a crockpot liner and thought, “I wish they had something like this for baking a chicken so I wouldn’t have to clean out pan…duuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh–an oven bag.” Of course, I didn’t get a “smart squirrel” from my mom on that one either.  She said, “Just use foil.”  Anyway, back to the geniusness of these oven bags.  They have 2 excellent features: they are top loading and have a peel-away sticky seal.  So, you can just set the bag in the pan, open up the top, and set the chicken or turkey right in there instead of trying to wiggle it in sideways!  Genius! Then, instead of looking for the little twisty to seal it off on the end, you just peel off the white sticker and fold the flap over to seal the bag! Genius!
Okay, so I never expected this entry to be so long.  I guess I must be enjoying writing more, and I’m definitely getting more relaxed with a lack of real structure.  So, this might have to turn into a series because I do have much more to share on the topic.  Of course, if I get a lot of negative feedback, I will keep the rest to myself and try to come up with something more interesting to write about.  Please share some ideas that you’d label as “Genius!” with me by commenting below.  I’m sure I could use them.