Recently DF committed to giving his older granddaughter a ride to school every morning. She’s in a charter school, i.e., no buses.

The booster seat required by state law is chilly, and she let him know. The next morning he warmed up our biggest rice sock (we have several) and put it on the booster, to create a kind of poor man’s heated car seat. Thus her narrow little butt stayed toasty-warm all the way to school.

Now that’s service. DF also brings along a banana and an old Altoids tin filled with bacon. This kind of thing could give Uber and Lyft a run for their money.

For the uninitiated, a rice sock is a classic life hack. Simple, too: a cloth bag (sometimes an actual sock) filled with uncooked rice. Heat it in the microwave and you have a steady, lasting source of heat.

You can also heat it atop a wood stove: During a prolonged power outage some years back, DF put a rice sock in a clay pot atop the fireplace insert. Until the heat came back on, the rice sock was as good as a hot-water bottle. Better, maybe: If it had leaked it wouldn’t have soaked the bed.

As the headline of this post indicates, that’s not the only use for a rice sock.

 

How else to life hack this small sack o’ warmth? So glad you asked.

 

Warming the sheets

 

During that cold snap, DF didn’t just huddle around the rice sock. He ran it across the sheets to warm them up before climbing into the bed. Back in the day, folks used to pass “bed warmers” – pans filled with hot coals – along the sheets to make them bearable.

A rice sock works, too. And when you finish rubbing the sheets…

 

Warming the feets

 

Some of us have very cold feet that don’t warm up easily. I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to fall asleep when my feet are cold. On particularly chilly nights, we put a couple of rice socks at the foot of the bed. (Thanks to SherryH of the BlindNotInvisible blog for suggesting this tactic.)

 

Warming your belly

 

Thankfully I no longer suffer from cramps. (Menopause has its upside!) When I did, I’d hold a heating pad flat on my abdomen and pray for the Midol to take effect.

Rice socks don’t have to be held down. They’re self-ballasting and stay where they’re put. Whether for stomach pain or muscle ache, a rice sock produces solid comfort. Make one that’s long enough and it can even be tied in place around an aching ankle or a wrenched wrist.

 

Warming the bread dough

 

If your home is particularly drafty, a low heat source helps bread reach its fullest potential. Cookbooks used to suggest setting the bowl atop another bowl or pan full of very hot water.

Personally, I use a warming tray set on a low heat. Before I threw in with DF, owner of said warming tray, I used a heating pad. But if either of those heat sources ever poops out on us, I can always nestle the bowl of dough in our largest rice sock.

 

Warming the Vicks

 

Got a cold? Way back when, people used mustard plasters on their chests, which sometimes produced blisters. Good times!

Modern moms rubbed Vicks Vapo-Rub on their kids’ chests, or added it to a vaporizer filled with boiling water. We had one of those; I can still hear it bubbling and hissing.

These days parents use cool-mist vaporizers, but Vicks Vapo-Rub can still be applied to the chest – and a rice sock set atop your nightshirt really unleashes the heat of that pungent unguent. Or skip the menthol and just put a rice sock on your congested chest. It’s soothing.

You can also arrange a rice sock across your neck while you lie down, to heat up a sore throat. I don’t know whether it has any healing properties but it, too, is soothing.

 

Warming your neck and shoulders

 

In an age of frequent screen use neck and shoulder aches are common. Wrap a rice sock around the back of your neck, or drape it on your shoulders. It chases the aches and also relaxes the muscles marvelously.

 

Warming your hands

 

In the book “Little Women,” the March girls carried hot turnovers in their pockets to keep their fingers from freezing. As a kid I always assumed they ate them for lunch, impoverished working gals that they were.

Nowadays you can get hand warmers: little packets of chemicals that generate heat once shaken. Apparently you can also be rechargeable hand warmers. But I’ve got a more modest proposal: Make a couple of small rice socks and put them in your coat pockets. Offhand, I’d recommend filling toddler- or preschooler-sized socks with the grain.

These won’t last as long as the chemical packets, but sometimes all you need is to get a couple of errands done, or take the dog on a good long walk.

 

Warming your lap

 

Some winter days carry chills that can’t be chased with ordinary methods. On those occasions when I can’t seem to get comfortable enough for a long night of reading, I put a rice sock on my lap and stretch an afghan from my toes to my waist.

Call it a poor man’s heated throw. It works.

Readers: How do you use rice socks?