On Notice: Saran Wrap

You are a disgrace to polymers everywhere

Sad Wrap. Called it. (Image by Anna Shvets via Pexels)

Saran Wrap, you goddamn charlatan. Claiming you cling, seal, or stick to anything but yourself like a 13-year old boy who’s just discovered perfume ads and Sabrina Carpenter videos. SHAME on you, sir!

You are a household product made of lies, tall tales, and blood curses. At best you drape yourself impotently over that dish of cooked rice and call it a day. I’m beginning to think those gruesome scenes in mafia movies where they use plastic wrap on their victims are pure fiction:

NICKY: Hurry it up, Benny. This guy’s bleedin all over my wingtips.

BENNY: I’m tryin! This stuff is stuck to my fucking sleeve; it’s fucking all knotted up here. I’m gonna have to start over. We got another roll?

NICKY: Jesus! I told Joey to get the good stuff, not that off-brand crap.

Why are you like this? You have one job and you give up immediately. Who do you think you are, a senator not up for reelection? You pass yourself off as a plucky helping hand in the kitchen, a simple, convenient fix to food storage and prep that wins every time, a real gal Friday when it comes to a cheaply manufactured polymer that supposedly revolutionized food freshness in household kitchens, but was initially developed to prevent corrosion on machine guns shipped overseas during World War II. Maybe you should have literally stuck to your guns, is what I’m saying.

Because my experience with you, Saran Wrap, is stroke-inducing. It sparks the kind of rage saved for when you’ve been bounced around to six different, unhelpful people on a customer support line only to get abruptly disconnected, forcing you to start over, after you take a chainsaw to your standing desk.

But it’s easy, insists Saran Wrap with the oily smile of an Amway rep, let me walk you through it. First, just pull and tear. HA! HA! HA! HA! Let me stop you right there, pal. Whatever I’m yanking out–a few inches, ten feet, it literally does not matter!--winds up hugging the side of the box. I yank harder and get a bunch of extra plastic I don’t want or need, but is now a part of my food storage journey. I drag the plastic along the serrated edge of the box that bloodies my knuckles, but is somehow still not sharp enough to “tear” the plastic. If you find yourself cornered in the kitchen by a deranged murder, forget the butcher’s knife–grab the box of Saran Wrap.

Are you applying to dry surfaces?, asks Saran. Cling wrap will not adhere to wet plastic or ceramic edges. Okay, PROFESSOR. Blame it on moisture, which is everywhere in the kitchen. I see what you’re doing there, clever, clever bastard.

Honestly, it’s really not that hard, Saran Wrap says, sounding more and more like that fucking Clippy from Microsoft Office by the minute. Center the wrap over the bowl, press it securely onto one side, and stretch it tautly across to the opposite side. Run your fingers around the entire outer rim to form a complete, airtight seal.

Well slap my ass and call me Judy! You don’t say, Saran! That’s all there is to it?! Golly gee gosh, I never would have thunk it!

Cause when I “center the wrap over the bowl” it immediately slithers away, rejecting the “outer rim” the way Keith Richard’s body jettisons a healthy liver. I anchor the wrap to the outside of the bowl, but now I have a sagging, gaping opening on top. Not to worry, I’ll just wrangle another piece out of the Edward Scissorhands box. Now I’ll graft this piece OVER the top of the bowl onto the other piece and down the other side, which is not adhering even though there is not a lick of moisture in sight. Okay, okay, we can do hard things, can’t we? I rip a third piece to paste to that side and secure the flap. But now the other side lacks the same security measures. A fourth piece will fix that easily enough! But with all of this business around the sides, the top is looking loose and flimsy. Better to unroll a really, really, really long sheet (like I have a choice!) and just tarp the entire bowl. Repeat that last step 3 to 27 more times. Fix a scotch and crawl fully clothed into the shower, turn on the water and sob.

What I end up with is something that looks like a hornet’s nest made by a lunatic bee with ADD juiced up on microplastics.

But at least my bowl of potato salad has been properly SEALED TIGHT FOR FRESHNESS, preserved like Han Solo entombed in carbonite. It can now wait out its days at the back of the fridge, utterly forgotten until the ocean levels rise and all traces of humanity are wiped out. Except for you, Saran Wrap. Except for you.

Well-played you flaccid plastic hell beast.

Well-played.