Today I laid down 99 cents each for those balsa wood airplanes for my three youngest boys. I don’t know why…an impulse buy at the register. Because, aside from being incredibly flimsy, physically incapable of flight and a total waste of a dollar, they are also the only thing in the world that duct tape cannot fix…we tried. It’s just too heavy.
I’m a big believer in the miracle of duct tape. It is by far the most useful of all tools. I once used duct tape to fasten the bumper on a Subaru Brat and it held for more than a year in harsh Alaska weather. If I was stranded on a deserted island and could only have three things, duct tape would be one of them.
Are you getting that I love duct tape?
I have to hide it from my son, Billy, because he too, is a believer and at six bucks a roll, it’s an addiction more costly than crack. Billy has been a lover of tape for as long as I’ve had him and we’ve battled it to the point that I have to keep it hidden in a hidey-spot in my bedroom along with the double A batteries and Nyquil…also his drugs of choice.
This is why I hide the duct tape:
Duct tape can repair the inner tube on a bicycle if you tightly wrap two rolls around and round the tube. Duct tape, it turns out, is not flexible. So upon the insertion of air, followed by the pressure of a ten year old boy jumping said bike off the back porch, the tape holds only until the tire hits the ground.
Duct tape can fix the crack in an otherwise useless sled, giving the boy hours of snow filled fun. However, once again, if the sled costs two dollars to replace and one completely coats it with a six dollar roll of tape, it’s a fairly frustrating fix for mom.
Duct tape will work as a decal for a snow machine if one cuts the sticky grey medium into numbers and letters and plasters them all over the cowling plastic. It will stick no matter what. Even when dad says ‘take the damn tape off my snow machine’…it will still stick.
Duct tape, in a multitude of colors, can be used to create formal wear for a backwoods New Years Eve party in Ninilchik, Alaska at the annual Duct Tape Ball. That’s right…we are that cool.
Duct tape can hold the fabric on the wing of an airplane long enough to get it home after a minor plane crash in the Alaska bush…just ask my dad.
Duct tape will hold a cooler chest of beer to a sled, while pulled behind a snow machine, for many miles of bumpy trail. The beers can burst and spray all over the inside of the cooler…but the duct tape will hold.
Duct tape can hold the sole on a shoe, repair a tent, create entire costumes, and even hold together a boat for the Red, Green Regatta Raft Race, in Fairbanks Alaska where each craft is required to have duct tape holding it together.
But it cannot, it will not, it’s just too heavy to…repair a child’s mangled balsa wood airplane.
