Wrapping Paper Is Of The Devil

I love giving gifts….absolutely love it. The excitement and jubilation on the face of the gift recipient is totally awesome. It is just the wrapping of the gift that causes me to fume to the point of inevitable internal combustion. The problem with wrapping paper is that it is so frail that at any point one gentle tug that becomes one-millionth of a pound too much force results in torn paper. Then what do you do? Sure, you could start completely over, assuming you have enough paper left, or if you don’t mind driving back to the store to get another roll because you didn’t buy two rolls like you told yourself you should because you knew this would happen. Or you could just try to force back together the fragments of paper and sloppily slap on a piece of tape in hopes no one will notice. However, this will just not work if the tear is bigger. Outside of starting over, the major strategy with the larger tear is to cut another piece of wrapping paper and patch up the gaping hole. However, as you get more and more tears, the whole thing becomes some sort of disturbing, disjointed patchwork quilt of wrapping paper. The patchwork solution also has the potential to result in a terrible gift-giving faux pas. Say you pick one of those cutesy wrapping papers for an anniversary that has inspiring words like love, hope, joy, dedication and the like written all over it. Depending on the words/letters used, the patchwork solution can result in overlapping words with unintended consequences, “Oh honey, look at this paper. How sweet. Love, joy, hoe, slut…what…what the hell kind of paper is this anyway? Cool Ranter, you ruined my anniversary.” Besides wrapping paper being ever so delicate, you can run into other problems such as: cutting the paper too small, therefore leaving you in the same conundrum as the large tear with a sizeable hole to cover up; cutting the paper too big, leaving excess paper that has no place to go, so it crumples, scrunches and bunches into a pile that you simply can do nothing with but try to mash down and apply a huge piece of tape on, wishing like holy heck’n fire that the other guests don’t start wondering why your present, which you sneakily tried to force into the corner and place under other presents, has some type of freakish goiter on its left side. So when you take into combination the potential pitfalls of using wrapping paper and a guy like me who barely has the requisite rudimentary skills required to fold one’s own clothing, wrapping a present is most assuredly never going to be a successful venture.

I had a wedding to attend yesterday, and had selected a couple of pre-designated gifts from the store’s registry a couple of weeks ago. I have wrapped many a present in my lifetime, however on nary an occasion has the resultant colorful parchment encased gift been deemed as Macy’s customer service booth worthy, much less “passable”, experiencing many, if not all, of the aforementioned gift wrapping disasters during every attempt to wrap my presents. Despite being fully self-aware of my past gift wrapping debacles, and even more cognizant of the less than cooperative nature of wrapping paper as a gift concealing medium, yesterday I went to the nearby drug store and picked out some nice wrapping paper with “wedding-related” words such as bliss, honor, and commitment inscribed on it, along with an accompanying ribbon and bow. Why didn’t I just go with the gift bag you ask? Because that is the way of the uninspired, languid gift-giver who should be disemboweled, their entrails spilling on the ground for the swine to feast upon. Ok, fine, I use them sporadically. Most often in between futile attempts to master the excruciatingly difficult art of folding a piece of paper around a square box. The pattern is usually thus: try to use wrapping paper and get handed my ass on an exquisite silver-plated platter by said wrapping paper; success with gift bag; success with gift bag; work up courage to give wrapping paper another whirl, only to have my soul pummeled yet again and my paper-folding inadequacies made apparent to all the world; gift bag success; gift bag success; Damn it, I will not let wrapping paper beat me. I am taking down this stupid wrapping paper and giving it the business….paper quickly retorts with “don’t F with me Mr. Thumbs” and promptly allows it’s infrastructure of fragile fibers to tear and shred on every corner of the present; and on and on goes the cycle infinitum. For this special occasion, I figured I would try a traditional gift presentation and try the wrapping paper once again even though I needed to complete a practically insurmountable task: wrapping not one, but two gifts.

I started with present one, and measured out what I believed was an appropriate amount of paper. I turned into Mr. Shaky Hands and cut across the length of the paper, leaving in my wake a jagged, disfigured paper edge. Well, that’s OK, I thought, I will just fold it underneath and no one will be the wiser. Of course, by folding it over, the paper was now not long enough, and I was not completely sure the roll was big enough to start over and complete my other present as well (no smart allecks out there, I did not buy the second roll while I was at the store). I guess it was patchwork solution then. I cut a hole-matching size piece of paper, and finished up the first present. Before setting the present aside, I had read the paper and made a ghastly discovery? Oh great, the overlaid words read “I hope your marriage goes down in a ball of flames.” Hmmm, what were the odds? Fine, it didn’t say that. The repaired portion actually displayed the ever-inspiring, yet cryptic, words, “hmnerh, nsdbugw, and sdbsghfdb.” Oh well, it was on the bottom and I was sure they wouldn’t notice. I then started on present number two. The piece was cut way too big, however I had enough paper left, and promptly cut another piece almost nearly as big. What kind of retard does this I thought? The next few minutes were then spent fighting with the paper, attempting to make it bend to my will, but ending up with a wrinkled, multi-folded piece of paper that looked as if a bum had crumpled it to stuff inside his shirt to keep him warm on a cold New York winter’s night. I was getting downright pissed off at this point, and decided that I would teach the paper a lesson by chopping it down to a smaller size so I could more easily manage it. My seething anger fueled a series of feverish cuts, slices and dices with my scissors, which reached a fevered pitch nearly resulting in me releasing a bone-chilling maniacal laugh like some type of deranged barber in a B-level horror movie. At this point, I really just wanted this all done. I mashed down the edges, causing several tears on the corners, and reached for the tape, only to realize that I had used the rest of the roll. Oh come on, I thought, and stomped off to the kitchen like a toddler looking for extra adhesive. Of course, the only thing I found was double stick tape, whose most glorious quality is that the best thing it sticks to is your skin, making for a wonderful time trying to hold down the wrapping paper with one hand while trying to put the tape on with the other and having to somehow separate it from your person rather than tearing it away from the paper which of course leaves large white patches of missing coloring and words on the wrapping paper. I was finally able to tape down the crumpled lump of paper on each end, repaired the tears on my pitiful looking present, and slumped down in a heap of exasperation and defeat. Not that I did such a thing at the end of all this….I am totally asking for a friend…but does throwing a scotch tape dispenser across your apartment in a fit of pure, unadulterated frustration and hatred with the ferocity of a major league baseball pitcher while letting loose with a spittle-propelled flurry of expletives constitute an anger management problem?