Hate Mail To Inanimate Objects

Dear Packing Tape,

I hate you.

Why are you so relentlessly cruel? I'm just trying to tape a box together so I can send out my giveaway prizes. Why must you make it so hard??

You stick so tenaciously to the rest of the roll, gripping on with all your sticky strength as I chip, chip at you with my now cracked fingernails.

Sometimes you tease me and a little part of you breaks free, but only a thin strand comes loose. A thin sticky strand that wraps around my fingers, trapping them. I hear you laughing at me, packing tape! I hate that you find my frustration so amusing.

Your most heinous act is when you separate into one thin strand, and then another, and another, leaving a useless mess of tape fringe that I must tear off and throw into my ever-accumulating wasted tape pile.

Once I thought I called your bluff as I started peeling first from the right and then from the left side of your devil roll. I pulled both sides together thinking I tricked you and that both sides would meet in the middle, but you made sure those sides would never meet and that a thin strip held fast down the center of the roll, rendering either side useless.

Sometimes I start to peel and I see you widening on the way across, but you capriciously veer off again to the side and I am left with yet another tangled tape tendril.

On the rare occasion I have a workable piece of tape, I try to adhere you to the box, holding the cardboard sides down with my left elbow and trying my best to smooth you flat. Then I attempt to tear off one end with your metal teeth and, at the same time, try to ensure that you don't slip through my fingers and clamp down, once again, to your roll--but it never works. You always manage to stealthily avoid my grasp and start your cruel dance all over again.

I know you're in cahoots with those evil twisty ties that hold toys in place when they're still new inside their boxes. They like to torment me on Christmas and birthdays in particular. They know full well the toy only needs two or maybe three twisties to hold it down--but no--they come in armies of twenty or more, twisting this way and that, sometimes getting stuck inside the toy. They like it best when I have to resort to pliers and sometimes screwdrivers to get the toys out. And I have tried to foil their plots and cut them off with scissors even though I know it ultimately won't work and that I have to go back to the twisting and pulling. I have noticed that they are often taped down as an extra measure of frustration--further proving my suspicion that you are a diabolical team.

But you didn't win, packing tape! You may have broken my fingernails, scratched me with your teeth and tramped on my spirit--but my box is taped and in the mail.

Except that I forgot to buy enough boxes so I have to put more together tomorrow. Prepare for battle!

Your worst enemy,

Jennifer

P.S. You owe me a manicure