Was it the glue itself that melted into the plastic or did you accidentally touch the hot nozzle to the desk? Curious if you tried sanding it down or just gave up and called it character.

I used to think those towers were genius, honestly. I bought one and set it up in my backyard thinking it'd be foolproof. But after three months of constant over or underwatering, everything just rotted out on me. It completely changed my mind about those systems, they just don't work for me.

Don't you HATE when a tool lets you down like that and then it takes YEARS to trust it again? I had a similar thing happen with a digital torque wrench from Harbor Freight that just went completely dead in the middle of torquing head bolts on my project car. I was SO mad I swore off digitals and went back to my old click type for everything. But then a buddy let me borrow his Snap-On digital for setting the pinion preload on my rear axle and I could not BELIEVE how consistent it was compared to my beam style. It was like night and day. I still keep the old click type around for when I'm just being lazy and know the feel, but for anything that absolutely has to be right I will use the digital every single time now.

Honestly feels like you're way overthinking a cup of coffee.

Hold up, you used Simple Green on a bike chain? I thought that stuff was too harsh for bike parts. Everyone online says you need some fancy degreaser.