Salt in the Rice Shaker

Tips for Salt Shaker problems:

1. If you have a problem with salt clumping in your salt shaker (salt cellar), then put some rice in there. Don't believe me? Check the science on it here, here, and here.
   
   
2. You're not supposed to cook the rice first. I thought cooked rice would be nice and fluffy (like a sponge) and would be good at absorbing moisture. Not so.
   
   
3. You need salt in the salt cellar, too. Not just rice cooked with lots of salt.
   
   
4. Rice may be good at keeping the salt from clumping, but it does not have great de-clumping properties. If you have a solid salt-ball in your salt shaker, a few grains of rice don't have enough absorbency to disintegrate that much clumped salt. Shaking helps a little, but you're going to need a lot more rice to break up your salt block.
   
   
5. If you can't get the salt ball out of the salt shaker, you're gonna have to break it up inside the cellar somehow.
   
   
6. Don't use the microwave oven to melt the salt ball. Microwaves don't "melt" wet salt. I won't explain what really happens to the wet salt (or the salt shaker or the microwave oven), because you might want to try it, too. Just forget about the microwave oven, unless you're at the office and you're pretty sure you're going to get fired anyway.
   
   
7. Don't add water into the salt cellar in an attempt to melt the salt ball if you're trying to recover the salt. You have to keep adding more water, then dumping the brine out, then adding more water, etc.
   
   
8. Do use something long and slender and sharp to break up the salt ball inside the salt cellar. Sometimes you have little skewers normally used for stitching together whole turkeys for baking in the oven. Those will fit.
   
   
9. If you fancy yourself a bit handy around the house, you probably have a power-screwdriver or power drill or Dremel. A Dremel is best for being handy around the kitchen, because its petite form factor better suits the culinary atmosphere. You may laugh at this, guys, but you know that you're not going to be allowed anywhere near that salt cellar with your new hammer-drill.
   
   
10. Don't be in so much of a hurry to get the salt out that you think there isn't enough time to go find the Dremel. As they say, there is never enough time to do a job right, but always enough time to do the job over.
    
    
11. Don't forget to bring back the drill bits, too, or you'll be making a second trip to the garage.
    
    
12. Put a drill bit in the Dremel. Why not use one of those fancy carbide-tipped metric bits that someone got you for Christmas; after all, they're not much good for anything else.
    
    
13. Goggles. This is a Union shop.
    
    
14. Fire up the Dremel to it's impressive sounding maximum RPMs and carefully break up that salt ball.
    
    
15. Don't be tentative -- if you ease the bit into the ball too slowly, you'll burn the salt (see Microwave above).
    
    
16. One confident, manly, high-precision stab (think hammerdrill) with the drill bit and you're done -- don't do more or you're just showing off, doofus.
    

Random extra thing:

Here is a tip from someone even more confused than me. The author writes what do when you are "Hot?" or when you have rice (sic) clumping in your salt shaker.

One last tip. If you don't have rice, you can substitute sugar. Sugar is better at absorbing water (scientists say hygroscopic affinity or desiccant) than salt and it will keep your cellar running clear. Try it! Don't believe me? Check the science on it here, here, and here!