Does anyone else remember that Bond film where the hero is tortured by the super-villain (I’m pretty sure his last name was Gates)? The one where they used the agony of hair removal via diamond glass polish paste and an aggressive drill abrasion pad? I think it was a clever ploy by Bond to get the baddie monologuing. Then Gates laughed maniacally as Ms Moneypenny begged Gates to leave Bond in a “manly state”, or at least with a chest wax, before Bond thwarted the villain with carbon credits and a promise to erase a half-million useless eaters.

I’m… not entirely sure I have that right. But that’s what we did this week. We tortured someone into using this goop in an attempt to shave a few hundred bucks off the home-improvement budget. Our shower doors were a mess.

That’s more than a score of years of hard-water abuse. I can only imagine what our stomach linings look like. Abraham Lincoln knew. He had a different perspective because he could see the scrunge of four-score years of abuse that Washington politicians had visited upon the country. Imagine the mayhem as hundreds of wagons, drawn by manure-producing Zoom-teams, descended upon the swamp. Just in time for the Lincoln-Memorial-and-Foundation-Reinforcement Boondoggle Act of 1867, which reassured the people that everything was okay and that Washington would never, ever, demand that everyone cover their faces with fabric swatches to demonstrate their obeisance to their god-government polytheistic Overlords?

Well.

There is a solution.

This stuff. And a drill-pad polish set.

First, you’ll have to convince Codex to help drag your shower doors down the stairs and into the front yard. You do not want to use this stuff in your bathroom, because the pads and drill tend to send the gunk flying everywhere. That might not be as difficult as you imagine because “coffee and 15-minutes extra reading time” will guarantee the set of extra hands.

My waist-sensitive areas are still sporting the goop. Don’t wear any clothes you value when using this. And don’t set the drill pad against your chest in some attempt to raise your SMV by proving you can “best the paste”. You won’t. You’ll end up with some unmanly bandaid that only an omega would envy.

After hours, and hours, and hours of working you’ll end up with something like this.

Your back, by the way, will be asking for a transfer to the nearest elephant. Preferably a pachyderm at a zoo administering experimental human-medicinal-jabs that will end in a quick and mysterious death. Ignore it. Your vertebrae will recover with enough whiskey and vigorous elliptical-machine cycles.

Then your old friend, the garden hose, will be most useful now.

Rinse thoroughly. Really, really thoroughly. You don’t want diamond-paste rearranging the fiberglass atoms of your shower pan into a presidential brain-like gloop.

What are the final results you ask? Did we save several-hundred dollars off of our home improvement budget?

Well… yes. And no. Shower door #1 turned out great. It looks almost brand-new, except for the couple of spots I missed. Shower door #2 looks like Oprah after a makeover: a lot of effort, time, and Botox sent into oblivion because the starting material was of an extraterrestrial nature.

YMMV, but it’s a cheap $30 to save a few-hundred if your glass isn’t too far gone.

–> Quizzer