Time wrap

Dear [cling wrap manufacturer],

Apparently, cling wrap was invented accidentally in the 50s when a scientist trying to make a hard plastic cover for his car failed spectacularly. The ensuing product hit Australia (as a food preserver, not a vehicle protector) under the Glad brand in 1966.

While cling wrap was an improvement on wax paper, foil and whatever the hell else Grandma used, it was not instantly perfect.

When I was a child, cling wrap was something one did battle with. Cake covering could have been an Olympic sport. It was so tough, you could use it as a swimming pool liner and so sticky that you had as much hope of untwisting it as you had of tickling yourself. The metal cutter almost never actually worked. Also, there were no cute little tabs to tell you where to start unraveling the roll and there were no two-metre warnings, so it was reasonably probable that, unless you had both forethought and extra cash to acquire a spare, you would run out of wrap at inconvenient moments. I have been known to have actual nightmares about plastic wrap insufficiency – the stickers help.

Nevertheless, cling wrap was fun - in a dangerous kind of way. Small children sucked their sandwich wrappings into their mouths to twist into bubbles, which they drew great satisfaction from popping – if they didn’t asphyxiate first. Adventurous lovers played sadomasochistic sex games with rolls of cling film - and occasionally killed one another and/or themselves in their pursuit of heightened erotic fulfillment.

But I digress.

For many years after the introduction of Glad wrap, no other brand could compare. As an impoverished student, it seemed a fate worse than reading Leviticus to have to fork out top dollar for real Glad wrap while the evil, duplicitous but desperately tempting no-name brand beckoned beside it. Once in a while, I was seduced by the sixty-odd percent discount but I always (read: ALWAYS) regretted it. Where Glad wrap may have presented challenges, other brands of cling wrap either slid pitifully off any surface to which you wanted them to adhere, melted poisonously in the microwave into your food or stuck so intensely to themsleves that you wound up with a wad of plastic suitable only for chocking doors open or choking unloved relatives.

Things have changed. Technology has prevailed. There is now another brand that has broken Glad’s stranglehold on the food wrap market (that would be your brand) with a product of equal – or possibly even better – quality, paired with a (generally) lower price tag.

Loyalty, be gone! All’s fair in love and polyethylene.

You can imagine my delight when I discovered that not only did your product exceed my expectations but that you also package it in a budget 120 metre roll. This not only reduces the price (per metre) even further but also limits the likelihood of ACWS (accidental cling wrap scarcity).

However, cling wrap boxes are made of fairly flimsy cardboard. And while these boxes are generally robust enough to withstand the life of a standard 30 metre roll of wrap, it appears that they are not necessarily up to surviving a quadrupled lifespan intact. Any number of unfortunate incidents can befall these containers – from hurried tearing to drawer squashing.

Take my current roll. I was only an estimated 50 metres in when one corner of the box became wet. The cutting edge instantly detached itself from the soggy end, curling into a dangerous (and useless) hook. Unhappily, unless I buy a new roll and hope like mad the new box lasts the 190 metre distance (or buy a hokey and overpriced wrap dispenser from one of those catalogues that I always forget to put back outside for collection), I am doomed to relive aspects of the tragic and embattled sad-wrap days of my youth.

So, dear cling wrap company, please reconsider your packaging. Modifying your cling wrap box to increase longevity would be one more step on the path to cling wrap perfection.

Yours,
The Monstress