Day 100/Day 8: The Quicker Sealer-Upper

Boyfriend and I differ in many, many ways not the least of which is our approach to purchasing necessary items such as, say, plastic food wrap. I spend as little as possible on the stuff, opting for the generic no-name brand for $1.29. You know, the kind that doesn't actually cling to anything and just kind of lays over top of the bowl, blown off by the mildest of fridge breezes, leaving your pungent bowl contents to flavour the entire fridge while drying out into a hard, inedible crust.

In order to source the origins of this tendency, it is necessary to describe my mother's joy last Christmas over finding a cheaper brand of whitening toothpaste to put alongside new (cheap) toothbrushes in our Christmas stockings. "It's cheaper than Sensodyne," she crowed. Even I couldn't help but wonder, "Yes, but does it work?"

But in the case of the dysfunctional plastic wrap, I'm still digging in my heels. It irritates me that I must purchase brand name wrap in order to get any clinging power.

Enter Boyfriend. Whose purchasing philosophy is the exact opposite of mine: buy the absolute best, no matter what it costs. He says he gets this tendency from his father, but all I know is, I am now the regular user of the most powerful plastic food wrap in the history of mankind. The kind of wrap that will be excavated from time capsules in 150 years not only because it is impervious to biodegrading forces, but because of its myriad of uses. I'm talking about Glad Press n' Seal.

It's basically a 70-foot long plastic sticker. Some genius at Glad, after congratulating himself on the drawstring garbage bag, said to himself: I need to expand my horizons. And then he went ahead and put sticky stuff of the back of the plastic wrap so it actually sticks. "I'm just doing my part for humanity," the inventor of the patented Griptex formula would later say in interviews.

Even I can't deny the raw sealing power of Glad Press n' Seal. This morning, the box was still lying on the counter when I turned on the kettle for tea. For the first time, I noticed a series of illustrations along one side of the box under the trilingual title: So Many Uses/Usages multiples/Puede darle tantos usos.

In the first illustration, We The Customer are treated to some typical ways to use our multipurpose sealing wrap: it can cover bowls or Tupperware® containers for which we've lost the lids...again. But it also demonstrates a new and exciting way to use your Glad Press n' Seal! To hermetically seal Romaine lettuce! Don't limit yourself to just one piece of sticky plastic – use two to form a tight resealable lettuce cocoon. Who cares if it means throwing away the perfectly good bag you bought the lettuce in? Throw that bag OUT and lock the freshness IN, I always say.

The next illustration shows what kind of mad fun we can get up to when we take Glad Press n' Seal on a picnic. Observe the individually portioned and airtight vacuum sealed peaches. Perfect for life in space. Observe the fried chicken dinner accompanied by frozen peas, mashed potatoes and gravy. Don't you feel like you're in the 50s? Or receiving your daily delivery from Meals On Wheels?

The third illustration is where things get a little weird. There are drawings of individually wrapped bottles of shampoo, and an airtight toothbrush/toothpaste set. It appears freshness knows no bounds. Next to the space toiletries, there is a manly-looking workbench adorned with gloves, garden shears and a spray can cleverly labeled Oil. The workbench is covered in, you guessed it, Glad Press n' Seal. I am baffled by this one. I don't know many men who would submit to a Saran wrapping of their workbench. Saran wrap on their girlfriends? Yes. On their workbenches? No. I suppose an overzealous Glad Press n' Seal fan could wrap their sofa in it, though. Those plastic couch covers never seem cling, do they?

I went deeper into the Press n' Seal world to discover there is an active PnS community, one that shares ideas for even MORE uses of this miracle product. Susan from Penbrooke Pines, FL uses it to to protect the pages of her favourite cookbooks from splatters. Kelsey from Rochester, NY thinks it makes an ideal frosting dispenser. Vicky from Middletown, MD keeps her dog's liver treats(?) in it when they go on walks.

There is a whole world out there I know nothing about. There are adventures to be had. New things to discover. Sure, one of these people probably has Grandma Press n' Sealed for freshness in the basement, but there are literally 1000s of uses – WHO KNOWS WHAT IS POSSIBLE?



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