They did an experiment with rats where they put them in a cage & gave them two bottles to drink from. One had only water. The other had water laced with cocaine or something. The rats always drank the cocaine water & some overdosed. Then someone suggested that maybe they should give the rats something to do. So they built a playground, had other rats to keep them company for friendship/sex, and generally had stuff to keep them busy. The rats in that situation drank the plain water. Any that drank the cocaine water did so in moderation & there were no overdose. Taking care of their other needs kept them satisfied enough to not seek drugs.
Trip to Lafayette went well. Everyone at the VITA place was very nice. My brother tutored his student for an hour while I did word puzzles on my phone. Went to the place to look at the Formica after. I thought it was a store but it's a warehouse where they build stuff for commercial purposes. They had a section where they glued formica/laminate to mdf/plywood, another section where they cut the boards into specific sizes, another where they assembled cabinets, etc. The place was freaking HUGE. It had been like 5 different buildings all merged in to one. It had an interesting history. The guy who worked there told us all about it & said they keep finding new stuff about it. They were selling off old materials they no longer needed. Had all kinds of stuff-- including metal sheets (but those were $80). I was looking at a shiny white sheet that had the edge torn. Guy told me it was garbage bc it chipped easily. The blue sheets were too dark, there were some woodgrain looks, and various brown marbled stuff. I decided to go with plain white & pondered out loud if I could put it on walls. He said that it could and that they had used it in that way. The stuff I picked sells for $90 at the big box stores. I got 2 sheets of it. I think I have enough to put around the top of the shower surrounds as well as to do some countertop stuff. He rolled the sheets up carefully, tied them with string, and put cardboard at the edges to prevent damage. I need to unload them in the workshop and flatten them out. I kinda wish I could go back to look at more samples. I would have bought more sheets in different patterns if I thought I'd actually use them.