It’s a Wrap

Posted on April 26, 2014 under Storytelling with 12 comments

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Wrapping – Child’s Play

 

 

I just shipped out a box of my books to Wisconsin.  I should be elated that the good folks who bring you the Green Bay Packers and some of the best cheese in the world read my material.  I headed down to the post office earlier today and presented the large, heavy package to a pleasant clerk.  She weighed it; I paid the shipping costs and was leaving when I saw a grin cross her face.  “Did you wrap this parcel?”

Some things I do reasonably well.  I can make a mean omelet and a pan-fried haddock to die for.  During income tax season (my wife’s line of work) I take care of the laundry chores.   However, I was advised recently that if I put her bra in the dryer again, I will be forbidden to do the laundry in the future.  There’s an offer I can hardly refuse.  I regularly load and unload the dishwasher.   I can sing the tenor line in our church choir.

There are some things I do poorly and, as a result, don’t do them anymore.  I can’t assemble anything, even when the instructions are in English.  I can’t repair anything.   If I encounter technology problems at home or at work, I run screaming into a corner.

And despite my best efforts, I simply don’t know how to wrap presents, or anything else for that matter.

Back when I was young, naïve and smitten, I tried to impress my wife at Christmas.  I actually went into a store and picked out a gift.  I took it home and after a few feeble attempts, managed to hide the contents.  I quickly found out a few things.  The gift was poorly chosen and poorly wrapped.  The following year, I got smart and picked out a gift and had the store wrap it.  It looked fabulous.  But I soon found out that I had morphed into phase two of gift giving: well wrapped and poorly chosen.  This was closely followed the next year by unwrapped and poorly chosen.

In year four, I shelved the notion of a gift altogether.  Now, she buys the gift and wraps it.  There is nobody more surprised on Christmas morning than me when she opens her present … from me.

Which brings me to my most recent attempt at wrapping a parcel.  I tried to ship one book, one lousy book, to a reader in Alberta.  After a few minutes of futility, I went to the stationery store and got a bubble wrap envelope.  But you can’t put a large box of books in a bubble wrap package so I decided to wrap this latest shipment in brown paper and send it along.

Have you ever been to a day care centre just after “arts and crafts” hour?

The first piece of brown paper was too short.  The next one was too long.  Then I was flailing away trying to get the paper in place while extricating the scotch tape from the roller.  The angles of the folds weren’t perfect, but eventually it looked like a real parcel.  Just to make certain that things didn’t fall apart, I wrapped the extra wide, heavy duty packing tape around and around the box.  It probably added a pound to the shipping weight.  They may never get the damn thing open in Wausau but it will be in one piece when it arrives.

I am encouraging my readers to go to my website in future and take advantage of the digital download version of the book.  No packaging or shipping required.

Enjoy this? Visit the rest of my website to enjoy more of my work or buy my books!
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