… on freakin’ wrapping paper
June 19, 2014
I hate it.
When I see it in the closet, just waiting there… taunting me with the possibility that I may never, in this lifetime, master it… I feel…
Growl-y.
Ya! Just like Blaze!
But my teeth are a little smaller.
And not as sharp.
Or wolf-like.
Anyway, growl-y is what I feel.
I hate freakin’ wrapping paper.
Because I have no patience to master it and the results always look like the one up top.
Sort of like I folded presents up in my laundry (if I wore a lot of pastels, Christmas colors, and wHierd patterns).
So today is Self-Proclaimed-Perfect-Boy Gabe’s sixteenth birthday.
And, sadly and much to his disappointment (and despite my urgings to believe in the magic of the world), he is not receiving a 2014 red Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500 with a cobra on the side.
Because certain death, that’s why.
Also, I’m waiting until Mac and Sam complain about him being the favored youngest boy.
Because how fun would it be to give Gabe a brand new Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500 with a cobra on the side and see Mac’s and Sam’s faces. It would be better than when Sam just wanted a lollypop at Disney World!
I’m just sayin’.
Okay, and dreamin’.
So, the wrapping paper.
I was standing at the kitchen counter, looking at the wrapping paper, scissors, and tape when a message ‘blooped’ on Facebook and I looked at it.
Seems my friend wanted to send me something and how cool was that?!
So she needed to confirm my address, and then I confirmed hers because who knows what I might want to send to her?
Zombie Pig has been itching for a vacation, that’s what I was thinking.
So she thanked me and then she sent another message pre-apologizing for the packaging she was sure she would botch when she sent me the thing she is sending. And also for any dog hair attached to said package.
It was totally hilarious that she was apologizing in advance for the wrapping of the thing she is sending.
Then I remembered.
I totally do that – meaning pre-apologize for my presents.
Because I cannot wrap.
At all.
Anything.
No.
Not even a perfect cube.
Genetics?
Maybe.
Lack of training?
Maybe.
All out inability to focus and/or have the patience it would take to wrap things beautifully?
Definitely.
Look, I have a rationale.
I have a finite amount of energy.
If you want me to put that all into thinking about and choosing the perfect little something for you, I am happy to do it.
But then I won’t have any energy left over to cut the paper right and wrap the present perfectly.
That’s just physics.
In my defense, I have achieved sporadic excellence at hiding my mistakes with stickers, ribbons, or bows.
EmPHAsis on ‘sporadic’.
Also, I am rather excellent at ‘wrapping’ things in other things that are not wrapping paper (nor my laundry). For instance, I am perfectly happy to spend the equivalent of the economy of a small country (or Rhode Island) on a bag with matching tissue paper and bow. Even then, I will beg the store clerk to help me with the unwieldy tissue paper.
Because who is kidding who, tissue paper is really just wrapping paper after a crash diet.
It’s thinner, and crabbier, and I’m not messing with it.
In addition, I have creatively employed items other than wrapping paper to disguise presents over the years, and have done so with great success – big boxes, blankets and quilts, beach towels, pillows, lamp shades, and containers meant for anything from silverware to storage from home goods stores. Heck, I’m also willing to put a present out on the porch and have someone open the front door as the big reveal for their gift.
It’s not lazy…
It’s creative.
But with wrapping paper? Well, I always have the best intentions.
Doesn’t matter.
After the first fold, when I have way too much wrapping paper and I cut it and it looks like a toddler hacked into a shower curtain with an X-Acto knife, I’m done.
At that point I just hope to hide the crime of jagged edges by folding things crisply (doesn’t work) and then I just gather up the sides, and tape away all willy-nilly like scotch tape just grows on trees.
So, really, all the wrapping paper is doing is protecting the present from the tape at that point.
But today represented a victory because the prizes were wrapped messily, but with minimum (for me) tape. No stickers were used, even if a few – strategically placed – would have made things a little better.
That’s as good as it gets, people.
But I was thinking, as I was wrapping, that I really should have considered that Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500 with a cobra on the side.
Mainly because if he got that, no one would have noticed anything about the wrapping job or the amount of tape used.
I could have covered that in palm fronds and no one would have cared.
Huh.
Palm fronds…
Thanks for readin’.
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