In praise of duct tape

I have nothing good to say about football this morning. Except that Peyton Manning managed to get it back on track to win his game. But that can only dull the pain momentarily...

The air conditioner has been working for 4 days straight! I think duct tape must have been used to finally keep it running after 4 visits from the repair guy. Duct tape fixes anything! Even cars! My first car was a hand-me-down from my grandfather, a 1988 mint-green Oldsmobile which I called "Grandpa" (not my greatest moment of creative wizardry). Actually, Grandpa was my second car. My first was my dad's old car, which he handed over when I moved to Philly. This car had a refrigerator pan covering a hole in the floor on the front passenger's side big enough for Fred Flintstone to have powered his ride. This car made it to Philly, then sat in my driveway for months after I was told that it would need close to $2000 in parts and repairs to make it legal enough to get registered in the state of Pennsylvania. Eventually, a co-worker from the butcher shop (another story for another time) took it off my hands, as she had an ex who was good with cars. Guess he wasn't that good, as we got a notice from the state many months later telling us that the car was found abandoned on the side of a highway. Anyway, Grandpa was given to me after my grandfather decided that he wasn't going to drive anymore. I thought I'd struck it rich! The car looked great (in an '88 mint-green Olds' kind of way) and I was certain that it was in great condition. See, my grandfather spent most of his afternoons sitting at a repair shop in Rutherford, NJ with his friends and fellow horse-bettors. So naturally, I assumed that the car was well taken care of. Boy was I wrong. Seems my grandfather never took it in for a tune-up in the 10 years that he owned that vehicle. Regardless, after $1000 of work, the car was working well enough to get me, Alex, She-ra, and whatever else we could fit into it, from Philly to Seattle. And it ran fairly well for a few months in Seattle. But then it started falling apart. Literally. And we were broke, way too broke to afford new engine blocks and belts and alternators and whatever else was required. DUCT TAPE TO THE RESCUE! Alex figured out a way to keep things in place with nothing more than a $3 roll of duct tape! We'd keep a spare roll in the car, as things tended to loosen up under the hood with all the heat produced by the engine. I'd estimate that duct tape bought us an extra year with Grandpa. And I really loved that car. I still remember riding in the back as a kid, my cousin Melanie on the other side of the seat, each of us with our own bag of candy from the corner store near my aunt & uncle's house in East Hampton. Our grandparents often gave us each a couple of bucks to buy candy, clearly unconcerned by my ever-expanding ass, which was camouflaged by my unfortunate white-girl Afro. Me and Mel were always very careful not to get any chocolate on the fabric of Grandpa's new car. Years later, as I was using duct tape to keep the engine from dropping out, I was still careful about food stains on the upholstery. Duct tape might keep Grandpa from falling apart, but duct tape couldn't remove ketchup from the fabric (trust me, I tried). Sadly, time proved too much for Grandpa. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't use duct tape to fix Grandpa again, and we had to donate him to an organization that advertised "Will take any vehicle, any condition!" But the powers of duct tape had been revealed to me as never before! I have since used duct tape to fix furniture and appliances, I've used it to instantly hem a too-long pair of pants, I've used it to cover holes in walls, preventing roaches from passing through. Duct tape is an essential in every gal's toolbox. We all know that it can prevent radiation from seeping through those window cracks, but did you know you can also use it to remove unwanted hairs from those hard-to-shave spots? Yes, duct tape is a most powerful ally in the fight against terror and cracking porcelain. Buy it by the truck load to ensure the safety and well-being of your family today!
This post brought to you by the Duct Tape Manufacturers of America.