I originally posted this story a year ago, then took it right down to revise it and enter it in a contest. I didn’t win the contest. The box of plastic wrap is still with me, however, and just turned 16 years old.
***
The 28th of October, 2011 will be a milestone anniversary for me. My box of Saran Wrap turns 15.
That’s right. It has been with me for 15 years. It even crossed an international border.
My acquisition of this particular kitchen aid occurred during a previous relationship. It was 1996, and I had been going out with Hank for about three years. After doing the painful long-distance thing, we finally took the plunge and rented a luxurious <cough> basement suite in a suburb near Vancouver. It was all going very well, and I had even adjusted to the smell of damp, sweaty hockey gear in my living room. And then, one fateful day, we went grocery shopping together.
I was trolling the aisles with a budget in mind, and wanted to get out of the store without dropping more than a hundred bucks. Hank liked meat, so there went half of my working capital. As punishment for eating more than me but insisting we split the grocery bill evenly, I wouldn’t let him buy coffee (I was such a bitch). Our paramount disagreement, though, came when we got to the food storage section.
Hank’s view was that we should buy in bulk, thereby reducing the cost-per-unit price. Like most of my relationships up until that point, I had a shorter-term outlook, and was happier to keep the money in my wallet right then and there. It seemed outrageous to invest eight dollars in a box of plastic wrap. More importantly, I was the daughter of the man who introduced Tupperware to Canada. No joke. My, er, excuse me, our cupboards were full of environmentally friendly and technologically advanced food storage options.
The box that Hank settled on contained 2500 feet of wrap. “We buy that size and we will have that bloody thing forever,” I said.
To collect a proper metric on eternity, Hank got a black felt pen and wrote the date in the left-hand corner of the box.
What we didn’t have forever was our love. Our disagreement on plastic wrap puckered in comparison to our inability to achieve a bilateral treaty on procreation. (Truthfully, we never really talked about having kids. Hank just drew an obvious conclusion as to my preferences based on the fact that I kept buggering off to Africa and other far reaches of the world.) I bought a condo, and Hank came along for a while, resentful that he wasn’t given input on the color scheme. I refused to acknowledge that the divergence of our paths was putting our union in grave danger.
As sure as 2500 feet of plastic wrap lasts for 15-plus years, our relationship disintegrated. Hank moved to a small town and had babies with someone else, and I fell head over heels for a man who travels the globe with me and jokes about liking kids just fine, baked. Every time I open the kitchen drawer, though, there it is, and with a good 200 feet left on it. It’s my reminder of young love, and some happy times. It also brings a feeling of relief that Hank and I didn’t commit to the end of the roll.
I had a friend in High School named Sarah Ann Wrapp. I haven’t have plastic wrap in my house for ten years. I simply never use it! Another family would probably go through that box in a week!
Well, I guess the benefit of having a name like that is that no one will bother to think up bad nicknames for you!
As a Canuck living in Dublin I have had to adjust to Saran Wrap being called Cling Film ( pronounced Cling Fill’em) sort of like a relationship. If you’re not wrapped up in it then nothing’s going to ever stay fresh. Roll on my friend:)
Ha, I love it! Thanks for making me laugh, Sheree.
Ahhh the ubiquitous never ending roll of plastic wrap that proliferates many households! Haha, I had a roll from a previous marriage from ’92 that moved with me when the ex moved out of my life. I think that roll came along with my new home & partner to be finally diminished from memory & the cardboard roll after 16 years ! ( jeez from ’92 – 2008 – it is!!!)
Yay, I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one!
Aren’t you supposed to keep your love alive by wrapping up in plastic wrap and nothing else?
Saran Wrap Fail.
😉
Clearly! ;p
I don’t know what the competition was, but you SO should have won it! This is a brilliant and memorable post, Laura, thank you! It also made me think of my own experience of the pencil that I found that had survived my husband. One thinks of these things as silly, inanimate objects, but boy do they have power! (http://youngbyname.me/2012/05/09/the-pencil-mightier-than-the-sword/)
By the way, I shared your Saran Wrap post on Facebook and was very pleased to see my best friend from high school, who now lives near you in Tacoma, enjoyed it too! (And she will have had the advantage over my British friends of not needing a translation for Saran Wrap!)
Ahhh, thanks, Debbie! And I love your post, too — storytelling at its best. That’s so funny that your friend is in Tacoma! Just down the road, really.
Hilarious.
We are happily married 19 years this year. I believe we are on Costco plastic wrap box no. 2. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere but I’ve been up way too many hours already to come up with one.
Thanks, David, and well done! Not a metaphor, but how about this: “If you can make it through one box, you’re golden?”
Oh my gosh, at first I thought you had the Saran Wrap, untouched, as memorabilia of an old relationship (I found it odd, but hey), but no, it’s because 15 years later, you’re still using that Saran Wrap. HAHA! That blows my mind.
I wonder what Hank would think about this. Lol.
Oh, funny! Well, sometimes strange objects have strange meaning to people! And I must say, I am tempted to contact Hank and say “see, I told you so.” Glad you stopped by, Lauren.
Loved this post. (surprised to find some people haven’t heard the expression ‘cling film’. Obviously don’t watch Delia Smith’s Christmas or Nigella!)
In your post, I related to the idea of wee reminders or objects that are a signpost of something unrelated to their origin. When my dear Andrew died, I ‘inherited’ a majority of his “stuff”. That was four years ago and still, everyday, I think of him when I use his/now mine little cut glass pepper shaker. It doesn’t hold very much. I’m always refilling it. Yet, it is outside the realm of possibilities that I would use a different container.
Life is funny sometimes, isn’t it?
That’s such a sweet signpost you have to remember your friend! Yes, you must use that pepper shaker every day forever.
Do you want some Saran Wrap?
I bought a really cheap box of off-brand saran wrap a couple of years ago when I was unemployed and really poor. It barely clinged to anything but itself. After being out of town working for most of the last 2 years for, guess what. . . there it is in my kitchen drawer. It’s like a Never-Ending Gobstopper. The roll never seems to get smaller and it won’t end!
And even if you have money now to buy the better stuff, you can’t bring yourself to throw it away, can you?! And it will sit there in your drawer, taunting you for years to come. It can be really evil, that off-brand saran wrap. Thanks for reading, Carole!
Laura, I was rapt in your story. (sorry, can’t resist corny jokes this time of year, I think it’s a flow-on from bon bon/Christmas cracker jokes… do you have them over there???)
In Australia it tends to get called Glad Wrap (also a brand name) aka cling wrap. I can’t believe you’ve made it last so long. Clearly, I need to get more Tupperware.
I also can’t believe you didn’t win that competition. It’s obvious the judges have no soul.
Heehee!
We have Glad Wrap, too, I think. Saran isn’t as popular anymore, but for some reason, the name has stuck as an all-round reference, just like “Hoovering.”
Thanks for your kind words, Belinda. I guess you could say I was foiled by the judges. Bwah hahaha!