Did my friend actually make it worse when she defended that artist everyone was piling on?

That cracked drain valve you found reminds me of the time I was servicing a lav and the suction hose blew a gasket right as I finished. Perfect timing. Anna, to answer your question, I did get a "nice job" actually. The lead grumbled something under his breath and walked off, but the captain came down a few minutes later and shook my hand. It felt like a hollow victory though, because I spent the next two months being known as the slow guy on the crew. Better slow and dry than fast and covered in blue fluid though.

Hang on, I gotta push back a little. Gelatin's great for specific things but PVA isn't the enemy here. Modern PVA has different formulations, some are actually flexible and acid-free. The issue is people grab the cheap school glue or hardware store PVA which is way too stiff and turns yellow over time. Archivists use PVA blends all the time for brittle paper, you just need the right product. Gelatin can also swell and warp paper if you don't get the concentration exact, plus it's way more susceptible to mold and humidity changes. Not saying your buddy is wrong, but PVA isn't automatically the bad guy.

Yo same thing happened to my dell last year except it was on a Greyhound bus in the middle of nowhere Nevada. The plastic just crumbled like old cheese. I found a random computer repair shop near the bus station that charged me like 80 bucks to superglue and clamp the hinge back together. It wasn't pretty but it held for another 6 months till I could get a new laptop. Definitely check Yelp for local repair shops that do hinge repairs on the spot.

Grabbed a window unit from the habitat restore for twenty bucks after my greenhouse fan died mid july last year. It was like 98 degrees and my cucumbers were wilting fast, so I just rigged it up with some zip ties and duct tape to a frame I built from scrap lumber. That cheap little unit actually ran for three full seasons before the compressor finally gave out. Not pretty but it kept everything alive while I saved up for a real greenhouse exhaust fan. Sometimes you just gotta go janky and fix it later, you know?