Local Improvisations

[manofthecoldland]

The cleverness and ingenuity of humans has always pleasantly surprised  and even amazed me at times. More so in the industrial, factory made age when replacements can't be gotten a hold of due to poverty or poor access to replacements.

Jury rigging ( cf jerry rigged/jerry built) is common in the PI and I like stumbling across improvisations. [Note: I am not fond of the recent neologism "hacks" = tips, since it is a unneeded  one syllable popular alternative term  that can be confusing to older, English users.] 

To the point... Today my wife surprised me at coffee. She boils up a kettle every morn and puts it in a large glass vacuum thermos (Still popular here due to low cost, despite breakage susceptibility..... I don't even know if they still sell them in the USA where we've been using stainless steel ones for at least 50 years by workmen.... I've owned many types over the years as I'm sure you have also)

Regardless the type.... the insulated screw cap is usually the first thing to fail.  Unable or unwilling to get a replacement cap, I've seen them repaired with even rivets and foam rubber inserts. 

The older thermos bottles had cork stoppers. I haven't seen those since my childhood.  When the 2-3 year old plastic stopper failed my wife replaced the cracked and disintegrating plastic with a wooden plug.  I thought she had just gotten it from a neighbor wood worker, but today she had it wrapped in a additional piece of fabric rubber banded atop to gather it for a better seal she thought.

So I asked her if the fellow who made it had turned it on a wood lathe for roundness.

"No." she replied. " I bought it at the market for one piso."

Pretty hard to beat that price with anything else short of a hand carved piece of kindling.