Wrap This!
Manufacturers spend millions of dollars annually on developing packaging for their products. The packaging must be lightweight and inexpensive to produce and ship. It must also catch the consumer's eye as well as withstand the consumer's in-store poking and prodding and attempts at theft. No detail is so minute that focus groups and marketing committees haven’t hotly debated its virtue. Thermoformed plastic clamshell or injection molded plastic boxed insert? With or without a hang tab? Cardboard? Bleached chipboard or sleeved corrugated? What about Mylar? What kind of environmental impact will it have?

Fetching photos of the product must be taken. Models (hand, child, other) must be photographed handling and enjoying the product in attractive ways. Safety hazards must be considered and disclaimers positioned in very fine print. Graphic Designers spend feverish, sleepless nights agonizing over fonts, knowing that one misstep could open the door to one of thousands of other graphic designers clogging an overcrowded job market. Sensitivity committees must analyze every aspect of the finished design, searching for inadvertent sexist, racist, or Nazi-related undertones.

Whether it’s Pop Tarts or a plasma TV, a multitude of livelihoods turn on getting products in a box that arouses desire in consumers while preserving freshness. The line between functionality and seduction is mighty fine, and I wouldn't’t want to be the one walking it. It’s a thankless task to be sure, for who among us gives the box a second look once the Pop Tarts are gone? Do we stop for a moment to consider that what we’re discarding is someone else’s ultimate career accomplishment? We’ve taken the blood, sweat, and tears of these artisans for granted for far too long.

Why then, especially in this season of brotherhood, must we heap insult onto injury by gift wrapping all of these works of art? Would you hide a Picasso under gaudy wrapping paper tied off with a bow? (Don’t talk to me gift wrap designers...they’re no more artists than greeting card writers are poets.) Would you cover a sunset with, um, well, let’s see…

OK, fine. The truth of the matter is that I toss Pop Tart boxes out on a weekly basis with nary a second thought. This whole blog has been a farce, a desperate charade. The truth is the only thing I hate more than the psychological and financial strain of choosing and buying a gift is the epic struggle of wrapping it. When a simple chore evolves into a savage attempt to twist the laws of physics and geometry, I get cranky. How can it be that the scissors I was holding not two seconds ago have now vanished into oblivion? Why is losing the tape a condition of finding the scissors? Why can I only find the dull scissors that rip and tear at the paper instead of cutting it, especially when there are no less than four good pair somewhere in the house? When did they start limiting the tape in dispensers to approximately 3 inches? And why do I never buy more than one roll of tape?

I realize my results may not be typical. My epic struggle may be your whistling walk in the park. The fact that the finished product will ultimately end up in tatters only further dampens my already soggy enthusiasm.

Paper selection, or the lack thereof, is always a problem for me. Is there really much call for NASCAR wrapping paper? Why is Coca-Cola attempting to trademark the polar bear? Since when does Batman deliver gifts on Christmas Eve? Usurper! I refuse to pay a premium price for wrapping paper. It may look nice all rolled up, but it will very soon end up tightly wadded in a landfill. It's garbage. I refuse to pay $5.00 for a 10 yard roll of garbage just because it's sparkly.

This year I chose an elegantly understated Scooby Doo themed paper, and not just because I could get 300 square yards of it for less than three dollars. I feel that society needs a mythical cultural icon that embodies the jolly spirit of the season, around which traditions can be established and passed down among generations. It should be someone children adore and adults find charming. Who better than Scooby Doo?

And so it was, having chosen my paper, bought my one roll of tape, and located the dullest of our household scissors, that I sat down with a fairly good sized box at the coffee table and prepared to make some gift wrapping magic. I made a conscious choice to be as jolly as one can be while still retaining power of attorney.

I unrolled some wrapping paper, face down, on the table and placed the box, face down, in the center of it. I pulled one edge over the box and attempted to estimate how much paper would be needed to cover it entirely. I reached for the scissors, when suddenly our cat, Tuesday, heretofore known as the Lighted Receiving Tree Tipper, leapt from under the table where she’d been lurking and sank her claws into the paper overhanging the side of the table. As the box and paper slid off the table, she pounced on the roll, shredding it with her claws and teeth.

“You are a very naughty cat,” I said. “Now go away.” Or something like that. I don’t remember exactly. What I do recall is that the cat fled the room immediately. I was left to pick up several yards of newly “distressed” wrapping paper. I contemplated still using it, but I knew that accusations of being cheap were certain to follow, especially once the paper was removed and the gift was revealed. So I spooled out the damaged paper and scrapped it.

It was with a slight decrease in jolliness that I unrolled some fresh paper, face down, on the table and placed the box, also face down, in the center of it. Again I pulled one edge of the paper over the box and set to work measuring the proper amount of paper. I reached for the scissors, only to find that they were, of course, no longer there.

I knew they couldn't have gone far. Like most scissors, they had poor eyesight and little if any money. Yet they were gone. How? How? While I tore the cushions from the couch and upended the coffee table, I began to dwell on the purple handled scissors.

The purple handled scissors are the Holy Grail of scissors, at least in this house. Shawn uses them for cutting cloth, and he's said that they are never to be used to cut paper, which would dull them. Naturally, those were the scissors I looked for first. After a search of the entire house failed to turn them up, I began to suspect that Shawn had purposefully hidden them from me. Now, knee deep in couch cushions and loose change, I was convinced he had hidden them from me. I was convinced that he didn't trust me not to use them, and had them squirreled away somewhere for safekeeping. That bastard probably hid them in the trunk of his car, or rented a safety deposit box, or brought them to his office. They could be hidden anywhere.

A mental image of Shawn formed in my mind. There he was, under cover of darkness, burying the purple handled scissors in the back yard in an old mayonnaise jar. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, and he was laughing, laughing, laughing. He was also slightly taller and dressed as an organ grinder. And if he was the organ grinder, who was he implying was the monkey? Me? It was, after all, his present I was wrapping. That bastard!

I was just about to return his present to the Dollar Store when I spotted the scissors I had lost, sitting inexplicably on top of the TV. I had no memory of putting them there. It was then that I noticed the purple handled scissors, sitting next to TV in plain sight.

Feeling slightly guilty, I reassembled the sofa and gathered my materials for another crack at wrapping the gift. I retrieved the scissors-the dull ones, not the purple handled ones which are not for cutting paper-and sat on the couch. Unfortunately, the roll of wrapping paper was also on the couch. I heard the crunch beneath me and knew immediately what I had just done.

So much for my economical Scooby Doo wrapping paper. So much for my gift wrapping magic. So much for my jolliness. Why, oh why was wrapping a stupid gift so complicated? Why must everything be a hassle?

It occurred to me then that the people who designed the package the gift was in had all put a lot of effort into it, and....