It’s a Wrap

Posted on April 26, 2014 under Storytelling with 12 comments

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.

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