Question about dried beans vs canned

I keep seeing folks say canned beans are cheaper, but a 2 pound bag of dried black beans for $2.50 makes way more food. You just have to soak them overnight. Has anyone else done the math on this?

Trying to forge a simple leaf keychain for my niece turned into a two-day ordeal

I thought it would be a quick project, maybe an hour tops. The problem was getting the stem to taper right without it getting too thin and breaking. I must have burned through six pieces of 1/4 inch round stock before I got it. The whole thing took me about five hours spread over two evenings. Anyone have a solid method for drawing out small, even tapers?

Had to choose between a crawl space full of cats or a basement with a beehive

Got a call for a rewire in an old house in Asheville last month. The only two routes for the coax were a crawl space with about eight feral cats or a basement where a beehive had formed in a corner. I picked the cats, figuring some hissing was better than stings. Spent the whole job with a flashlight in my teeth, trying not to startle them. Anyone ever had to make a call like that with wildlife involved?

My curling iron died mid-client and I had to improvise

This happened last Tuesday with a regular who wanted beach waves. I was halfway through her hair when my go-to iron just shut off. No warning, no smoke, just dead. It was a $65 one I got about a year ago. I had to act fast, so I grabbed my flat iron and a spray bottle. I dampened small sections and wrapped them around the flat iron barrel, holding them for a bit. It actually worked and she loved the looser curl it gave. But man, that was stressful. What's your backup plan when a key tool fails during an appointment?

Pro tip: My realtor in Charlotte said to skip the inspection to make our offer stronger, but my dad said never buy a house without one

Last week, we found a perfect little ranch house listed at $285,000. Our realtor, who's been doing this for twenty years, told us waiving the inspection could really help us beat other offers in this market. She said it shows the seller we're serious and won't back out over small stuff. But my dad, who helped me fix up his own place, called me right away and said that's how you end up with a $20,000 plumbing surprise. He told me a story about a friend who bought a place three years ago and found mold everywhere after moving in. Now I'm stuck between trusting a pro's advice for getting the house and my family's warning about protecting myself. Has anyone else faced this choice and what did you pick?

A customer at the hardware store tried to return a hammer he bought in 1998.

He had the original receipt, faded but legible, and claimed it 'never felt right in his hand'. My manager actually honored the store's old lifetime guarantee policy, which I didn't even know we had. What's the oldest item you've ever had someone try to return?

My kitchen faucet handle snapped off on Saturday morning.

The replacement cartridge at the hardware store was $28, but I found a video online showing how to fix it with a $3 nylon washer from the plumbing aisle. Has anyone else had luck with a cheap fix like this instead of buying the whole part?

My cousin told me to ignore the 'birds aren't real' thing as a joke, but now I see people taking it seriously at protests in Denver.

Serious question, how do you handle a phantom pressurization fault?

I spent a whole shift on a 737-800 last week chasing a pressurization warning that kept coming back. The book said to check the outflow valve first, so I did that, and it seemed fine. Then I moved on to the cabin pressure controller, swapped it with a known good one from stores, and the fault was still there. I must have spent 4 hours going through the whole system, checking every seal and sensor I could think of. Finally, my lead came over and asked if I'd checked the actual cabin altitude gauge itself. Turns out the indicator was just stuck, giving a false reading to the system. A simple tap fixed it. I felt pretty silly for missing something so basic after all that time. So, when you get a fault that points to a big system, do you guys always start with the cheapest, simplest part first, or do you trust the book's troubleshooting path completely?

My cousin told me to skip the 90s X-Men comics and go straight to Grant Morrison

He said the old stuff was too slow and the art was bad, so I jumped into New X-Men from 2001. After a few issues, I felt totally lost on who characters like Emma Frost were and why her story mattered. I ended up going back to read the classic Chris Claremont run from the 80s anyway to get the full picture. Has anyone else gotten advice that made you start a series in the wrong place?