Asklemmy

The top of the inner part of your oven is partially corroded, so the top heating element does not stay in place. If you leave it as is, it'll get in the way, burn you, and burn your food. And you don't have money for a new oven. You're reasonably sure that the heating element is coated with some elec-proof stuff.

So what do you do? You put a big nail across the hole caused by the corrosion, and hold the element to that nail with some wire. "Just temporarily". (Nothing is more permanent than temporary hacks.)

Linguistics. You're making field work on phonetics. You need clear records of speakers speaking their variety, that means good mic + noiseless environment. And yet you're studying a variety mostly spoken by farmers, and the ones willing to help you out can't travel, so you'll need to record them from a cellphone in their farm, and your record will be filled with pigs oinking, birds chirping, and a rooster going "CRAAAA" nonstop.

The solution? ...screw phonology, your paper is now about syntax. It's far easier to detect by ear if the speaker used pronoun reduplication than if he used [ɾ], [ɹ] or [ɻ].

You got a synthesis route demanding glacial acetic acid (HAc). Except that the HAc bottle is empty, requesting another will take a week because bureaucracy, and oxidising ethanol to HAc through permanganate is bound to get someone screeching at you "YOU'RE WASTING OUR REAGENTS!!!".

Your solution? Run some quick maths on what's cheaper: 1) to distil supermarket vinegar, or 2) to use bleach to oxidise ethanol at some loss. Then you do it.