Here's a funny one, as most of you know, Max and I provide a little weather station for the local folk. Lately one of the sensors was showing a very low humidity reading and finally I tracked it down, compared it to others and replaced it because the humidity section was kaput. I was considering ordering a replacement and having it smuggled in by friends visiting in August. I put the question out on the weather forum and it turns out the humidity sensor is a tiny little circuit board chip, maybe 1/4" square with zig zag circuit lines very close to each other. It's coated with a hygroscopic coating to create a path for conductivity due to moisture in the air. Now, I know about a lot of things from the birds & bees to what makes silver microfilm work - but hygroscopic coatings? - over my pay grade.

I had already taken it apart (naturally) and tried to clean the chip (not knowing what actually made it work) with alcohol thinking that maybe the tiny spider who had taken up residence was "depositing" something on the chip. So, I hit it with a swab and alcohol and the humidity promptly went to 10%? Seems alcohol removes the coating on the chip. But there was good news, one of the guys said some hair gel products have some stuff called PET in them and that coating is what makes it work and he gave a couple of examples of products he had tried and worked.

I set off for our local Soriana mercado and wow, what an adventure. Oh My Gosh, it was like years ago when Chris would say, "honey get me a tube of hair gel while you're at the store please". You feel your lips go numb, the fingers begin to tingle as you approach the "hair gel section" and find more different brands of hair gel in more different containers (all the way from a tube to a tub) and you're standing there like the 68 year old idiot you are trying to make out something recognizable in Spanish and might say "contains PET". Mercifully I finally came across a L'Oreal Studio InvisiFX gel and I headed for checkout, I could hear some Mexican kids snickering at the old gringo in the hair gel section - maybe spikes?

I cleaned it again and started carefully applying thin coats of the gel with a Q-tip and it seems to be working, today after ap #3 we're within 1% of one of the other sensors. Of course all I did was dab the stuff on the chip with a cotton swab, so the amount used is imperceptible.

I can see it all now; in 20 years when I die someone will clean out the junk under the sink and come up with a full tube of hair gel and ask "now what the heck was an 88 year old guy doing with hair gel?" - ha. They won't know that a $2 tube of hair gel saved me $40. PS: having so much gel left over I asked Max if he wanted some spikes? - he hissed and headed up the chimney, he never hisses?