An Essay by Gil French

Before paper was a common commodity, people did not wrap their grocery products in much of anything. After all, what was there to wrap in? Leaves, bark, animal skins? They often had their least favorite, most troublesome, child carry the disgusting item, smelly prehistoric fish, a boar’s head or some other repulsive carnivore body part or organ, complaining vigorously, holding his or her nose and making life miserable for the responsible adult accompanying the family assembly on its trek home. It was not a pretty sight. Neither the carried object nor the transporting child always arrived home in prime condition. Humans of that time had to await the arrival of civilization and a wondrous development that would improve their lives and those of their overburdened offspring.

The invention of paper (at least the commercial production of paper) made an enormous difference in wrapping procedures. After this tidy engineering feat, one’s fish, or offal, or other repulsive edibles could be properly enclosed in some castoff item of reading material. Now the malodorous food substance could be wrapped in used or unused paper products such as Cervante’s novels, Dante’s poetry or Bach’s cantatas. Bach wrote a vast number of them anyway, and no one really knew how many. Because many people of that era could not read, it gave them something else to do with their daily newspapers and other written material.

Then, many decades ago, the giants, midgets and mid-sized tag-alongs of our country’s vast corporate network took advantage of a product that allowed them to wrap almost any items they produced. This product was known as cellophane, developed and marketed by an enormous chemical plant in Delaware, which, as a result, became obscenely wealthy and the envy of America’s industrial community. The product, itself, was a marvelous example of human brainwork. It was transparent, extremely thin, impervious to both water and air, and, when thrown away would quickly revert to its organic origins and add no pollutant matter to its place of disposal. It was very easily removed from its enclosures and crumpled into a tiny wad to be thrown away. It solved many of our republic’s greatest problems. Unfortunately, it went out of public favor and has been replaced by other, inferior products.

Since the sad and unfortunate passing of cellophane, plastics have replaced its ubiquity in our highly advanced society. Plastics, in case you were wondering, are not good news for either wrappers or, most especially, unwrappers. At first, there was plastic wrap, affectionately known as Saran Wrap. This flimsy substance is transparent, airtight and waterproof. But, it is indestructible and is, even as you read this, befouling our environment. Even worse, it can be shrink-wrapped, which makes it extremely difficult to remove. Now, the ill-wishing shrink-wrappers compounded their efforts further to confound the shrink-wrap-using public. The clever rascals developed a plastic wrap that is so thick and dense that it covers its contents in an everlasting shroud that cannot be removed by average human effort. It resists tearing, being cut by scissors or hacked with knives, sawing, biting, ripping, striking with an axe or hatchet or using nearly anything short of fast-burning explosives (I have never really personally used fast-burning explosives on wrappings for this, or any other purpose).

This material is used to cover nearly everything you buy: tools, batteries, toothbrushes, vegetables, writing instruments, small pets and even pills. (I am only kidding about the small pets, I hope.) It is not only thicker and heavier than the original shrink-wrap, but it molds itself tightly about the enclosed objects and adheres to them with passionate ardor. To this day, I sport bruised, battered hands and deep gouges in various body parts that were inadvertently placed in the way of knives and scissors used to try and remove the impenetrable coverings.

We can visualize the leaders of industry, grinning smugly and slapping each other on their backs in hearty congratulations. They have created a product that has intensified public frustration and chagrin. They rejoice at the vast number of items the public has bought, but which lie inertly on shelves for weeks, maybe even years, simply because their wrappings cannot be removed. Already the kingpins of our corporate world are planning the next level of evil-doing; stronger and denser plastic coverings, perhaps including hardened steel netting imbedded within. My guess is that they are planning the marketing of a costly package-opening kit that contains such items as welding equipment, miniature jackhammers and powerful detonators. With luck, some of us will have reached our untimely demise before their plans come to completion.

 

772 words