131–140 of 183 posts
> Own 30 pairs of same color socks and 30 pairs of the same colored underwear so that socks always match, and do your laundry every month.
Not that I follow it to a T, but I think there's something about standardizing everyday items to reduce the mental load. Similar to tupperware: only own two container sizes so everything nests nicely and you're never left searching for the odd lid.
In 2003 I bought a gross of socks from bulk-bargain-sock-sales.com which sadly is no longer with us. A paypal checkout and $60 got me a gross of dress socks and a gross of athletic. Took me till 2013 to run out of the athletics, I'm 1/8th of the way through the dress. I did one more re-up on the athletics (my daily driver). and am now buying off amazon in large packs. I basically have hiking socks (all rei), dress so…
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They're a waste of space if you don't make tea much, or one of the fancier and more-manual coffee-making methods. Most people in the US don't make tea much, and just use an automatic drip machine or a keurig for coffee, so of course they don't have a kettle. We have one, but it's because we drink more tea than most Americans, and since we have it for that, it's space-saving for me to also use it for pourover coffee (…
It’s absurd that as a country you drink so little tea that you wouldn’t need electric kettles. At least, I can totally see how it would seem as such to anyone from the UK (and most of the world).
They're easier to find these days but still rare. If you ask for a hot tea at a restaurant, you'll often get a suspicious-looking teabag that has spent at least 6 months in the cupboard (iced is more available). I'm sure you can guess at the quality of most of the teas in an American grocery store; I usually wind up ordering from specialty tea shops instead.
It's funny, long time ago, back in my bachelor days I definitely didn't have enough socks, and wouldn't take time after work to go get some. So I would go sockless on the way to work in the morning, buy some from Target to wear for the day. Then do that each day until the weekend when I would wash my clothes. Then that eventually got me enough socks to get through the week.
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Is it really so surprising that we don't (as a rule) have electric kettles? I think the reasons are pretty clear. First, Americans are mostly coffee drinkers, not tea drinkers. The coffeedrinkers are mostly using coffee machines that heat the water for you, so you don't need a kettle to do it. This is true from the low-end $30 drip machine to multi-thousand-dollar espresso machines. Second, America is on 110, not 220…
> Second, America is on 110 Kind of: 240V is fed into homes (along with a neutral), and gets split in half. Most receptacles are 120V for most appliances, because it gets the job done. There aren't many appliances that need more than that. The two main ones that do have 220V plugs are clothes dryers and kitchen ranges (hobs/ovens). If you want a kettle that boils faster change your NEMA 5 socket (and breaker) that do…
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It’s absurd that as a country you drink so little tea that you wouldn’t need electric kettles. At least, I can totally see how it would seem as such to anyone from the UK (and most of the world).
Everyone in my (American) family drinks at least a cup, and often 3-5 cups of tea per day. This is considered a lot here. Tea drinking is so non-normalized that despite my entire family's love for tea, I was well into adulthood before I learned of electric kettles (from Tumblr) and introduced them to my family. They're easier to find these days but still rare. If you ask for a hot tea at a restaurant, you'll often ge…
("sun tea" is made by sticking a big glass pitcher or jar outside on a warm sunny day, with water and teabags and maybe some citrus slices in it, and waiting for it to become something resembling tea, which you may drink at its natural somewhat-warm temperature, drink over ice, or refrigerate).
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It's the "don't drink tea much" that is surprising!
They might not drink tea much for having dumped all their kettles into the Boston Harbor back in 1773 or something.
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No, they are just the cheapest socks I could find.
Buying the cheapest socks you can find is a great way to pay more in the long run than buying higher-quality socks.