Jury-Rigging

We had some friends over recently for an overnight stay, and they had forgotten to bring some contact solution.  We live a few blocks away from two small local markets, but it’s a really small rural town, and there was no contact solution - or distilled water - to be found.  By the time we discovered this, it was already too late to go to town (25 minutes away) for the one 24-hour store that would still be open there.

So... we put on our thinking caps and jury-rigged (as opposed to jerry-built) a still.  It was quite humorous and a lot of fun.  We have an old (OLD) humidifier that utilizes the minerals in the water to conduct its electricity and turn the water into steam.  I determined it would be easier to use than my tea kettle, simply because it didn’t have to be on the stove.  

Next, our friends said we’d need a tube - maybe of foil - to catch the steam.  So I wrapped some tin foil around the humidifier’s power cord to create a tube... of sorts... to place over the steam’s exit hole in the humidifier.  The makeshift tube needed to be propped up in some fashion, so I placed the humidifier on a chair next to our son’s high chair.  I was told that the tube either had to be really long, or had to go somewhere cold so that the water would condense and turn back to liquid.  I smiled and pulled a frosty mug out of our freezer.  I also needed something to catch the distilled water, so I snatched a small Glad tupperware that the mug’s mouth could rest on, but not in.  I fit the tube inside the mug, and butted the other end against the steam’s exit hole.  Voila!  A makeshift still!  (Hehe!)

Now we just had to give it time to work.  We had already planned on watching a movie, so we let it do its thing while we watched.  It certainly wasn’t efficient (no kidding!), but it did distill enough water during that time for him to place his contacts in.  (It covered a little more than the bottom of the gladware.)  His contacts wouldn’t get clean, but at least they had somewhere to rest that wouldn’t make them worse.  I was glad that my friend didn’t have to sleep in his contacts, or do without the next day.

I am thankful that God made more than one way to do something and thus made it possible to jury-rig.  Not only does it get you by in a pinch, but it’s a lot of fun!  I also got to do it with Friends (without whom I probably wouldn't have had quite enough knowledge to make it work).  Yay for adventures!