The Battle of the Plastic Wraps; or Because Everyone Knows You Use the Crappy Stuff First!

A small, relatively bloodless skirmish is about to go down at my house. 

And it will be hermetically sealed.

Welcome, my friends, to the plastic-wrap wars.

“You bought generic plastic wrap?”  I wrinkle my nose at the box on the pantry shelf. 

Willie raises his eyebrows at me.  “What’s wrong with saving a couple cents?”  

“Nothing ,” I say, “if you’re into games.”  I open the box, where the plastic wrap has wound itself into a cylindrical IQ test. 

Having moved back home after 11 months of living on my own, I have made many such discoveries. 

Willie’s a fine man, don’t get me wrong, but like the chimneystack of pizza boxes and the un-named life forms found in the fridge shouting “equal pay for equal work”, some things may have gone undone in my absence.

 “So it doesn’t always cut off cleanly,” he says.

“Hmm,” I say.

“We can’t all buy the Saran Wrap,” he says defensively.

“For the extra 40 cents,” I say, “I freed myself of the hassle of looking for the end of a tattered bit of plastic wrap, time better spent driving the cats to their tap dancing lessons, or painting my nails.”

Willie frowns, walks away muttering, “You know dang well those cats don’t take tap dancing lessons.”

And so there are two rolls of plastic wrap at the house now:  a generic value-priced gremlin with an inaccurately placed metal ridge, resulting in an uneven tear; and the Saran Wrap, which tears as it should, each and every time.

Given that most of our leftovers are kept in Cool Whip containers, these things will last forever.

Or so the Germans would have you believe… 

Imagine, if you will, At-Home Pearl.  She enters the kitchen – as she is wont to do – in search of a snack.

Something light and fruity, she says to herself.

And there, on the table in the middle of the room, is the Saran Wrap.

I open the fridge, where Willie has wrapped his lunch for tomorrow.

“Willie?”

From the other room:  “Mmmmm?”

“Willie, have you been using the Saran Wrap?”

Silence.

I wait.

“I may have,” he says cautiously.

I walk into the living room.  “I’ve been using the crappy one.”

“Why would you do that,” he says, “when the other one works so much better?”

Why I oughta…