I know somebody.

It used to be, when you were stumped how to solve a household problem, you went around asking your friends for advice. If you were lucky, one of them had the answer. If they didn't, sometimes they had friends who knew the answer. If not, you were out of luck.

Now we're in the age of the internet. 24 hours a day, we're plugged in to people who know stuff. They can fix things from printers to garbage disposals. They understand things like why glue sticks and what to feed a turtle coming out of hibernation. They have tips and tricks for just about anything -- and they're more than willing to share what they know.

My husband spilled some of his favorite sugar-free drink on the carpet. Of course, it is red and the carpet is beige. He tried his best to get it out without telling me what had happened, but that made it worse. We ran the nifty carpet cleaning machine we have on it. It was better, but still very visible. Put-a-footstool-over-it visible.

I turned to my best friend, Google. I typed in "red stain on carpet" and up came links to 1,380,000 hits. Clearly, this is a serious, world-wide problem. There must be veritable seas of red-dyed juice on acres of carpet on every continent on the planet. Who knew?

After paging through several suggestions, I found one I wanted to try, if only to prove it didn't work. I really couldn't make the situation worse, so I had nothing to lose except floor space when I permanently nailed the footstool to that inconvenient spot. To my delight and amazement, the spot disappeared almost completely. Just to further test it, I repeated the process on a similar stain that has been in the carpet (with a throw-rug over it) for over a month. That one is gone, too.

It's a great feeling to say, "I know somebody who can help with that!" With the internet, I know 1,380,000 people who can help in this case. If you're looking for one of my know-it-all friends, read below. Happy un-staining!

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THE PROCESS:

Yeah, you should test this in an innocuous place, and I take no responsibility for the results. CYA.

1. Pour a cup or two of water mixed with a small amount of dish detergent all over the stain. Really saturate it.
2. Take a white terry dish towel and wet it thoroughly (so wet you wring it out, and then only wring out enough so you don't drip while carrying it to the area with the stain.)
3. Lay the wet towel over the wet, stained carpet.
4. Plug in a regular steam iron and set it to Steam. When it is hot, set it on the towel over the stain. You'll hear it hiss and fizzle. This is good. (It must be 100% on the towel, to avoid harming the carpet.)
5. As the noise dies down, or every 3-4 minutes, move the iron to another part of the towel to continue the process. Don't let it completely dry the towel or it will scorch it. Lift a corner to check progress from time to time. You'll see the stain magically transferred to the TOP of the towel, and the side near the stain will be clean. (Nice party trick if you need one.)

Repeat process if it's a stubborn stain, but it should come out. If not, call my friend Google. It knows 1,379,999 more people with ideas....

The Blush of Unsuccess

I don't know who started the now-ubiquitous practice of giving a plaque to someone whenever they speak, when they win an award, when they just show up sometimes. I hope whoever it was gets a royalty on every plaque created, but I doubt it. How could he or she possibly know it would catch on so thoroughly?

I have plaques in my home office that I like to hang up. One is a company award that patted me on the back for years of hard work. I earned every chiseled letter of that plaque, and was gratified and pleased to get it.

Then there are the ones in the closet that never see the light of day. (OK, I reused one of them as the base for a cool cat toy, but I don't think that counts.) These are plaques given for things I either did not do, honors I did not merit, or that make much of something that was nothing to me. I'm embarrassed by them. I call it my "plaques-a-lot" stash. I got them, said, "Thanks a lot," and buried them in the closet.

I'd rather receive no award at all than one that is unmerited, or that leaves me scratching my head wondering why they gave it to me. Especially if there were other people I considered far more worthy of the award. I duck my head when they are mentioned. I don't put them on my resume. I don't even want to make cat toys out of them.

This morning I woke to the news our President has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009. As clearly as if I had been there, I could picture an aid awakening the President with the news, and his forehead wrinkling in consternation and confusion. "I did? Why?" might have slipped out before he had time to process the news.

I wonder if he'll look at it in coming years and want to put it in the back of the closet. He doesn't have a cat.