5 Household Uses For Cream Cheese You Never Knew About

You may think you know everything about cream cheese. But I’m going to tell you right now that there’s a lot of things — well, five things to be exact — that you never knew you could do with cream cheese.

Believe it or not, it’s not just something you spread on your bagel or use to make cheesecake.

Here are 5 household uses for cream cheese you never knew about:

1. Don’t have Mastic or Ceramic Tile Adhesive? Everyone loves a backsplash in their bathroom or kitchen. It makes your house look amazing and, more importantly, shows you have good taste. You may even have an unused box of tiles in the basement for a project that you thought you’d start three years ago but never did. Now that you want to start the project because you saw a cool DIY video on Facebook, you realize you don’t have any Mastic or ceramic tile adhesive. But you’re too impatient to drive twenty plus minutes to walk arund aisle after aisle for 90 minutes at the Home Depot or Lowes for an overpriced container of that sticky pasty stuff. Look no further than your refrigerator. Spread some cream cheese on the wall and get to to work! And for the grout, if you don’t have any, you can also use flour and water (2:1) with a bit of kitty litter (1/2 of water ratio) mixed in.

2. Don’t have your Lancome or Loreal beauty mask cream? We all know the importance of moisturizing and rejuvenating your face. One of the best ways to do this is applying a natural mask that you can leave on for several minutes to get the full effects. But in these days of overused chemicals and deregulation, it’s not always healthy to put these over-the-counter beauty products on your face. But look no further than that box of cream cheese in your refrigerator. Get your cream cheese to room temperature, mix it with a wooden spoon until it’s smooth, and apply it to your face. Leave it on for about 10 minutes. You might have glowing and healthy skin after!

3. Have a stain on your couch and not sure how to get it out? It seems like for every stain, you need a separate product to get it out. I can’t keep track of what to do. Nothing can be more frustrating than getting a stain on your expensive couch and not knowing whether it’s the Simple Green you’re supposed to put on, or whether it’s the Sprite you’re supposed to put on first, or whether it’s some other product you know you don’t have, and by the time you get that product, the stain has set. With cream cheese, you can forget about all the confusion. Just spread the cream cheese on the stain — any stain, blood, paint, fluids, it doesn’t matter — and let it sit until the cream cheese dries. Take the cream cheese off with a knife and the stain might not be there anymore! It couldn’t be any more simpler. You can now throw away the stain charts.

4. Is your door squeaking and you don’t have WD-40? Don’t you hate it when your doors at home start to squeak? It’s a horrible situation, because when you’re sneaking around the kitchen in the middle of the night looking for something to eat without your partner knowing, a squeaking door alerts everyone to your presence. Sure, you could use WD-40 like everyone says to do, but do you really know what’s in WD-40? If it was just silicone, why do they call it WD-40? I’ll just say the terms “WMD” and “Iraq” and leave them there. Do yourself a favor and do something healthy for the environment, and your pets or small children if you have any. Put a dab of cream cheese on the squeaky part of your door and in no time the squeaks will be gone!

5. Do you have weak WI-FI? Without question, wifi has revolutionized our world, allowing us to access the internet even if we don’t have cell service. But the problem with wifi, especially at home, is that depending where you are, the strength of your signal fluctuates. How many times were you in the bathroom, watching a youtube video, and all of a sudden your phone switches out of wifi and starts using precious data on your 4G network because your wifi signal can’t reach you. Don’t despair, and don’t spend the extra money on one of those questionable wifi boosters. Get your cream cheese to room temperature and spread it around the antenna only of your wifi router. You should see, as a few unpublished studies have pointed out, a 45% increase in the strength of your wifi signal.

BONUS:

Do you have a chest cold? This was a horrible year for the cold and flu, which means it was a good year for drug companies making millions and millions of dollars selling medicine to the public. But what if I told you there was a natural way to cure your cold that didn’t involve ginger or Vicks? Next time you start feeling congestion, spread some room temperature cream cheese all over your chest before you go to sleep. Make sure you put some gauze over the cream cheese so that it doesn’t come off while you sleep. You should feel better when you wake up!

Do you have a hole in your tire? The flat tire on your bike or while you’re driving will inevitably happen. If it hasn’t happened already, I’m sure you know what an inconvenience it is. Sometimes you have to rack up hundreds of dollars in towing bills or you have to walk several miles to get some help. But fear no longer. Keep some cream cheese in your glove compartment or in your bike’s kit bag. Anytime there’s a hole or some other puncture in your tire, just fill it with cream cheese and wait a few minutes for it to dry. You might be on the road in no time!

Please let me know if you tried any of these household hacks above. And, if you have other household uses for cream cheese that aren’t listed here, let us know in the comments!

 

New York County Criminal Court Clerks: Overpaid, Incompetent, and Unprofessional

Over the past several months, I have received reports from prosecutors and defense attorneys (as well as some judges), and have seen it in action with my own eyes, of the complete incompetence and unprofessional behavior of New York County Criminal Court Clerks, whose office is situated next to arraignments (AR-3) on 100 Centre Street. In my years as a reporter, I have always tried to avoid sweeping generalizations about a class of people, because often sweeping generalizations neglect the achievements of certain individuals that seemingly fall into the targeted class by mere presence only. But, in the case of New York County (Manhattan) criminal court clerks inside the office next to arraignments, the “sweeping generalization” that they are overpaid, incompetent, and completely unprofessional holds true to every single one of them.

The phenomenon is quite interesting. I have spoken and seen in action other criminal court clerks in other parts. This post certainly does not apply to them at all. Before I get any hate mail or calls for a retraction, please note that this post applies specifically to the criminal court clerks working inside AR-3 and who are located in the office next to AR-3.

From what has been reported to me and what I have seen, AR-3 clerks are allergic to any semblance of work. Even when judges ask them a question — much less a prosecutor or a defense attorney — they respond with disgust with such amazing and reliable consistency. These criminal court clerks, while they read the newspaper on their desks in AR-3, enjoy making jokes about defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges with such volume that you can hear it in the audience, even without having to strain. Apparently, and what seems hard to understand, is that the majority of defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges just give these clerks an annoyed look, in much the same way you would look at a roach or an ant in your kitchen. It’s likely because of the attorneys’ acquiescence that these AR-3 clerks are continuing with their completely unprofessional behavior.

To top that off, it appears from my observations and from reports from members of the bar, that their work day seems to end at around 1:30 p.m. Any questions, inquiries, or requests for work after this time are met with animosity and shakes of the head. For a City that is encountering some budget issues, I would suggest that they are paid from 9:30-1:30 only, because that is the only time they will even consider doing substantive work that doesn’t interfere with their reading of the NY Post or Daily News.

As a reporter trying to get information about cases, you can then only imagine the animosity I receive. Last week, at about 4:00, in AR-3, when I asked a clerk (he wore glasses, had slightly receding brownish hair, and a round face) about when a particular defendant would be arraigned, I was met with these words, “Why don’t you go outside, go on google, and find out for yourself. Don’t waste my time. You are inconsiderate. You have no sense of time.” He then looked at the clock, sauntered to his empty desk, and continued reading his paper. Fortunately, a court officer provided me with the information I was looking for, before stating, “Don’t worry about that guy. They’re ALL like that.”

Are AR-3 clerks’ job that horrible? Indeed, the justice system often functions at the lowest common denominator. Clerks, who work for the court and for the judge to ensure that paperwork is docketed and processed correctly, are unfortunately AR-3’s lowest common denominator.

They all should be removed and replaced with professional clerks who have some semblance of respect for other people.