I don’t know about you but, bubble wrap appears to be irresistible. Whenever it arrives at my home, I have a hard time not spending quality time popping bubbles. It has become a bone of contention in my house with my children as we all race to grab a portion of the wrap to entertain ourselves. I’ve made a serious observation of various techniques of deflating the bubbles. Everyone has their own style.
It is sort of like my observation of how one eats a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Everyone has their own style. Some put the cups in their mouths whole…some nibble around the edges…while others insist on poking holes into the center of the peanut butter cup and putting the cups on their finger to eat. Me myself, I have a refined…delayed self-gratification style of putting the package into the freezer and leaving it just long enough to freeze the chocolate. Then, I delicately nibble on the edges of the fluted cups…leaving the soft peanut butter centers to melt in my mouth. Yum, I am hungry for chocolate all of the sudden! Where was I? Oh yeah, my observations on bubble wrap popping.
I have multiple children…they all do it differently; popping the bubbles I mean. I have one who likes to put it on the floor and stomp on it. One who likes to pop them slowly…over time. One who likes to twist the sheet of bubbles into a cone shape and then pop them all at once; cackling all the while when the rest of us complain because we didn’t get a chance to pop some of them while he “wasted” all of the bubbles. Ha!
Me, well, I love to pop them one at a time. My children find that annoying (especially when they are watching TV or a movie). I can do it for hours if I have enough bubble wrap. One would think maybe, with my style of bubble popping that I would have a method to my madness; and of course, I do. I go up and down the rows in order…pop, pop, popping my way. How is it then, that when I am all done…I can still go back and find a few unpopped bubbles here and there? That is a question for deeper thinkers than me. All I know is…when I am done…not only the sheet of bubbles is deflated…so is my response. I can’t believe I popped the whole thing! Flat bubble wrap is NO FUN! There is a sense of sadness about that; at least until I get my hands on another sheet of bubbles. LOL
I admit, I have a fondness for bubble wrap…it was created four years before I was born. Just in case you are wondering, it was invented in 1957. Two engineers were trying to create wallpaper out of the air bubbles which were backed by paper…it was a goal that failed in it’s orginal concept. However, the engineers, Alfred W. Fielding & his partner Marc Chavannes were not discouraged. They came to the conclusion that their invention had value as packing material and because of that…we have come to know bubble wrap as a wonderful thing in our world. It is very useful for protecting fragile objects when we are shipping them to and fro.
Mr. Fielding and Mr. Chavannes founded a company, that makes bubble wrap in 1960, called Sealed Air Corporation. Happy 50th Birthday Bubble Wrap!!! These bubbles vary in sizes from small 1/4 inch on up. In fact, I have seen very large filled “pillows” used as packing materials. I find bubble wrap to be fascinating. It got me to wondering…what other uses could we come up with for bubble wrap?
I had a conversation one day with some friends of mine about that. We were kicking around the idea of what else could be done with bubble wrap. We had silly ideas, we had creative ideas…and we even ventured into the risque with the idea of bubble wrap lingerie. Ooooh la la
It was time to redirect the subject…one of our friends is a mail carrier…I couldn’t help but ask him; are you ever tempted to pop the bubbles in the packages that you carry each and every day? Oh yeah! His wife seemed slightly shocked at that…I wasn’t; who could resist the urge. I would be fired from that job because I wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation! How about you…can you resist bubble wrap or what?
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Oh what a lovely article! Just when we are all stressed about oil slicks and slick politicians…bubble wrap is just the ticket for stress relief. You’ve got my imagination running wild. I can see a distraught couple in marriage counseling, being handed a big piece of bubble wrap.
The wife says, “My husband is always so demanding, (pop, pop, pop) he never sees how hard I work”. “Plus I’m so nervous all the time, (pop pop)”.
The Husband responds, “Yes you are nervous, you are always wiggling your hands doing something, (pop, pop, poosh)”.
The counselor, sighs loudly and plays with his bubbles. “This is the last piece of bubble wrap, so we’ll have to call it a day”.
I am leaning toward your point of view…bubble wrap could save the world.
Hey H. Poling:
thanks! Ya know…we DO live in a high stress world these days…who knows; Bubble wrap could indeed save the world from some of that frustration.