Actually, I was sorta meaning it on my suggestion, goofy though it is. It's what my husband calls "field expediency".
Before a friend of mine gave me a couple of 1.25-lb iron plates for my Troy Lite, I was tying two 1-lb handweights to the bar with leftover shoelaces. And before I actually uncorked it and bought weight lifting gloves, I wrapped old socks around the handles of my hex dumbbells so that the sweat from my hands would be absorbed.
Glad you got a laugh out of it, anyway -
A-Jock