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PepsiCo beats Q1 forecasts
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Seinfeld: movie biz is 'over'
With all the news of wildfires, heat waves, financial collapse of an entire nation, a sinking dollar, and god knows what else, you may have missed the worst news of all: Bubble wrap has a new recipe, and soon it won’t go pop for you anymore.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Yes that’s right, the company with the genius to create a product that would not only protect breakable shipped items but also give the recipient an awesome toy has decided to remove the better of those two features.
They’re stripping the bubbles right out of the wrap.
Unpop. Unpop. Unpop.
No more pop, just . . . unbubble wrap. The company, a sorry excuse of a business called Sealed Air Corp, claims that shipping will now be less costly with their new de-airified wrap. Sure, but the change to product begs the question, will Sealed Air Corp change their name? Will they become Flat Unfun Airless Plastic Company now that air will no longer be sealed in anything except the head of the person who came up with this insane idea?
The thought of never again popping bubble wrap makes me feel a bit sentimental. I recall many a bubble wrap session over the years, sometimes after a fight-to-the-death with like-minded family members to get at the stuff. I always won, of course, because I’m generally meaner.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
One of the best gifts I ever received from Jim was a giant roll of bubble wrap. It was not for wrapping anything, just for popping. It was Dedicated Pop. What a happy period in my life, suddenly popping bubble wrap was just an arm’s reach away. Didn’t take all that long to get through the roll, but luckily bubble wrap has something of a second life, a 1/2 life, as it were, as all desperate-to-pop aficionados know.
And what a great thing to discover that others felt the same way about bubble wrap, so much so that endless pages popped up (groan) online, offering virtual bubble wrap popping experiences.
Virtual Pop
It’s just not the same
Sad to say, virtual pop is hardly an acceptable alternative. It’s a joke, really, and bubble wrap is so much more than a joke. To the dedicated popper, it is a form of transcendental meditation, or at least that’s what he’ll tell his irate boss who wonders why it is so noisy in the office and why absolutely nothing is getting done.
Philosophy Pop
It is what it is
Until it isn’t anymore
Like your job
Bubble wrap has always been multi-purpose. For example, it was good for losing weight, because when you were popping bubble wrap you didn’t have a free hand to snack.
Diet Pop
It’s the real thing
And it was a reasonably good tool for clicker-training a dog. One minor problem was getting the attentive dog to tune out after training was done, while you obsessively continued popping. “Good dog!” pop pop pop pop . . . “G-g-g-g-g-gooooood dog”, pop pop pop pop. “Yes, you’re still a good dog, go lie down . . . no, in the other room,” pop pop pop pop . . . “go outside and play, go go go go,” pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop.
Dog Pop
Better than dog poop
Bubble wrap comes (well, came) in sizes, and to the true connoisseur, size was everything. Little bitty bubble wrap pockets were next to useless, although they were exponentially better than the giant pockets, which were so tough in texture and lacking in elegance and popability that you left your popping session feeling as though something important was missing in your life, which it was, because the medium-sized bubble wrap wasn’t there. Medium-sized bubble wrap was the finest vintage, containing just the right degree of popability and good pop-feel, along with a sound that the even the most discerning audiophile could not fault.
Big pop - $1.00
Little pop - $1.50
Medium pop - priceless
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Now all we’re going to get is toneless flat-lining dead-air wrap.
*schmfff* *schmfff* *schmfff* $#()@*#$()#@*$( *schmfff*
Badly done, Unsealed Air Corp. Badly done.
Photo: Contributed
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
