In love with The Tape

It is by far one of the greatest inventions ever created by the human race.

The automobile: handy, but hard on the environment.

The computer: a vital part of modern life but a real pain in the….

Those may be fine inventions that have helped human kind, but sitting very close to the top of the list is The Tape.

Men already know what tape I am talking about. There could be only one sticky item of which I speak, and that is duct tape.

I can hear men throughout the Valley grunting their approval for the multi-talented creation that men, real men I might add, have embraced throughout the world.

I love The Tape.

I do not know how the world survived without it. Had they had a whole bunch of The Tape on Titanic, well, let's just say the movie would had to have a much different ending.

Instead of what's his name sinking to a frozen death, he would run around like a man possessed, taping up the hull, saving the ship and the fair maiden.

What else on this planet other than The Tape could have pulled off such heroics. Nothing, that's what.

Your arm got cut off in an industrial accident? No problem, just grab The Tape, a few well-placed strips and it's as good as new.

The Tape also comes in a variety of colours, greatly increasing its applications to everything from fixing clothing (yes, I did close a rip in an old jacket  with The Tape one time) to holding the international space station together.

Is there no end to the marvels of the shiny wonder?

But even though there are more uses for The Tape than there are corrupt politicians, my wife still mocks one of man's greatest achievements.

I know, I don't understand it either. She just does not see the value of this invaluable aid to humanity.

Despite witnessing first-hand the prowess of The Tape, still she mocks.

Without The Tape, a return trip from Saskatoon would have been a disaster. It was in the spring and we had a van load of six people and enough luggage to trek across the Andes and back crammed into every nook and cranny of the silver Mazda.

I even put on a roof-top carrier because the teenage girl we were bringing back from Toon Town had as much luggage as the rest of us combined.

She had a makeup box that was just slightly smaller than a pool table. Why she needed that much face goop is beyond me.

Anyway, we were heading down the No. 1 with a blistering wind crossing the road. The air was moving at approximately 3,000 km/h and the dust was so thick in spots it was a near, um, brown out I guess you would call it.

A big rig passed in the other direction and nearly ripped the lid off of the car top carrier. I remember looking in the rearview mirror and seeing all these bags of stuff bouncing down the road. It did not fully register those were our bags until I spotted one of my daughter's dolls in a green dress skip across the asphalt.

I laid on the brakes, pulled over and ran back to collect everything. We did not lose anything, but we still had hundreds of kilometres to drive with a car top carrier that had seen better times.

What to do, what to do? I only had to think for a few seconds before the answer became clear.

The Tape.

I grabbed a roll of the silver-coloured saviour and wrapped it around the front of the carrier, thus sealing it from blowing open, thus saving the trip and the world, thus once again proving it is an invaluable addition to the human race.

Viva la Tape.

That was many years ago. The Missus still mocks, but for at least a few hours on that fateful day, The Tape rule supreme and even the little woman had to admit The Tape was a darned fine invention

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.