Ask Lemmy

Not too long ago I learned that you're not supposed to rinse your mouth out after brushing your teeth, but instead just spit out the toothpaste. Apparently you're supposed to leave a coating of it on your teeth for it to work properly.

I don't know about "wrong", but I recently found out people think it's weird that I attempt all the across clues in a crossword in order, and then all the down clues? Evidently most people jump around and make use of the extra letters they've been getting?

It never even occurred to me to not just do all the clues in order. 😬

For years I kept dating and being in relationships and putting a lot of effort into it. Also socializing and making friends too.

I gave up about 5 years ago and I'm much much happier with my life. It's amazing how much better I feel on a daily basis when my energy and efforts aren't going into a black hole from which no joy comes out. I also rapidly achieved a lot of life goals after 10+ years of achieving almost none of them.

Being mostly totally alone is completely awesome and I'm annoyed that other people convinced me it was terrible and awful.

Not actually recent, but a while back I learned that what we call the "bottom" of the banana is actually the top, flowering end. Turns out it's way easier to open a banana at the flowering/non-stem end. So many years I'd been opening them at the other end, trying to snap off the stem part, mushing up that end of the banana most of the time.

Granny knot. Making the knot the right way helps top never having to re-tie my shoes during the whole day.

Swallowing pills. A friend pointed out that tilting your head down helps with swallowing and I had never thought about it before. It really does make it easier!

Walking in general. Physical therapy both sucks super hard and is vastly improving my life. I've had a decades long back injury caused by a dog attack, but I've apparently been walking in a way that guards a wound not entirely there.

Thank you PT.

FUCK you PT.

Cleaning cast iron. I used to add water cold and bring to a boil. Now I heat first until grease is almost smoking, then add a bit of water and let it steam and sputter itself clean.

Tying my shoes wrong my entire life.

https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/grannyknot.htm

just found out about email rules, i have been deleting individually for years like a peasant

When I would boil 2 boxes of different shape pastas, I would boil 2 pots of water, instead of timing it out. (Ie: pasta1 needs 7 mins, pasta2 needs 10. Boil pasta2 for 3 minutes, then add pasta1 and boil for 7 mins.)

I learned that you should roll up a period pad and use the wrapper of the new pad to hold it rolled closed. They have a little tape and it reduces mess and smell.

In my defense, I didn't use pads until last year.

Opening cereal/fruit/granola bars and similar foil wrappers. I would tear them on the serrated part and then only a sliver of the wrapper would come off and I'd have to try to widen the resulting hole in order to extract the bar, often crumbling part of it in the process. However, quite by accident I discovered that if I instead ignore the serration and tear against that foldy seam part that runs down the entire bar, then it separates right down the middle like magic and I can easily remove the bar. Often works on 8/16oz cheese too.

Nobody told me you were supposed to scrape/scrub your tongue when brushing your teeth... and nobody told me about washcloths either. 🫣 My wife put me on to that about a decade ago (so, in my early twenties) so by now it's just part of my life but yeah...

Turns out the pedal in the middle slows down the car and you don’t need to just swerve around things all the time.

Putting my T-shirts in the drawer. Historically, I did this via flat stacking, like pizza boxes. It's much easier to find a specific T-shirt if you arrange them in the drawer like hanging file folders. Also allows you to pack in more of them.