Cling Film 101

Is there some secret to cling film that I'm not privy to?  It seems just about the most useless thing to have in a kitchen.  That said, I have a box of Saran Wrap in my drawer of boxed wrappy things, one that I don't remember ever buying.  It's probably several years old and not even half used because apparently, I fail at Saran Wrap.  Is there a class I can take somewhere so that I'll finally know how to use the shit?

I know that sometimes cling film is more desirable to preserve stuff than foil would be.  In a perfect world, it seems it would be better at keeping out air than a strip of foil.  I don't know why I think that--maybe because it seems like it would stretch over the surface, where foil would just tear.  Perhaps it's because of its similarity to dry cleaning bags and since I know that those are not toys for little children because of the ability to deprive their little lungs of air, similarly, cling film should deprive the food being protected of outside, influential air.  In theory.

In reality, cling film seems like just a big joke--a torturous device meant to bring around creative strings of curse words.  ("Motherless whore!" has always been a Pants Family favourite.)  When I try to tear off a piece, I inevitably wind up tearing most of the film by force rather that the little sawtooth thinger on the box lid, so instead of a neat rectangle in the shape and size I need, I wind up with a trapezoid at best, but usually a janky triangle that won't cover even half of what I am trying to wrap up.  If I do get a good piece torn off, it then sticks to itself in ways that are impossible to unstick, as if the cling film has magically become super strong epoxy tape.  In both the sticky tape and janky polygon cases, I'm forced to rip a new sheet of cling film out of the box as I mutter phrases heavily peppered with fuckwords.

And that box--why is it made of utter crap cardboard?  It wobbles about as I wrestle with the roll of film.  The lid flips up and down on me, refusing to stay open if I want it open, or closed if I want it closed.  Like it knows....  And don't give me that shit about the little tab at the end of the box that you're supposed to stick your thumb in so that the roll remains inside the box as you pull from it with the other hand because I've gotten that email at least 10 times and it doesn't fucking work!  I just wind up flipping the roll out in a more dramatic fashion and getting a cardboard slice on my thumb from the crap box.

Also, is it legal to bring a box of Saran Wrap on a plane?  Because that sawtooth cutter strip on the lid of the box is certainly more dangerous than my 3 ounces of contact solution and nail clippers.  I could probably fashion a shiv worthy of the highest security prison shankings with that sawtooth strip.  I know for a fact that if CSI came in and spritzed my Saran Wrap box with Luminol, the damn thing would light up like the Rockafeller Center Christmas tree.  I've probably left more of my own DNA on that little saw than I've pulled usable Saran Wrap from that damn roll.

Once I get a strip I can use off that stupid role and stopped my hand from bleeding where the ripper-strip sawed through to the bone, I try to put the film on whatever I'm trying to save.  Last weekend, it was a disposable, 8x8 tin pan of brownies.  They were fully cooled and ready for preservation but when I put the film over the top of the pan, it just kinda laid there.  The box said the film sticks to itself and I've certainly witnessed that on many occasions.  So I tried to bunch the excess together under the outer rim of the pan so that the film is nice and tight over the surface of the brownie pan.  It looks great until I let go of the film; then I hear a crinkling noise and watch that flat sheen disappear as the film loosens itself and lays flaccid over the pan, protecting the brownies from nothing.  It didn't stick to itself.  I have a pile of remnants of film that are hermetically sealed to themselves and rendered unusable, but when I need it to stick.... 

I wound up wrapping the brownies up with cling film, but not just a nice strip like they'd have you believe is effective in the commercials.  No, instead, I made like a warehouse worker in a shipping facility and wrapped the brownie pan in a good 25 revolutions of continuous layer of cling film, turning the pan in several directions so that it would hopefully at least try to deter the air from infiltrating.  The little pan looked like shiny square of cling film rivulets, a virtual pillow of Saran Wrap ready to be popped into a shipping container and sent to some far away land via very slow boat that probably houses eleventy hundred rats who are well versed in the fuckery of cling film and enjoy the hell out of some home baked brownies, thank you very much stumpy bleeding girl.

And after this whole thing, was I smart enough to throw the box of Saran Wrap away so that I won't go through this again?  No.  I put it right back in the box of wrappy things where it will sit until my mind has fogged over this latest battle with cling film and the Universe needs a good laugh, wherein I'll repeat the process all over again. 

Fuck you, Saran Wrap.  You motherless whore.

a Pants Service Announcement

I've been blogging for over 10 years now, which means I'm ancient in terms of bloggers. I don't have the power-numbers the likes of Dooce and Pioneer Woman, but I also don't have the will to promote myself and my site like those two either. I give them credit for doing what they're doing and making it work, but I don't strive for that kind of online presence. I like to hop around and not use my real last name. I've been "recognised" in public once or twice and frankly, it freaked me the fuck out.

However, with the second, third, fourth, whatever wave of blogging cresting and breaking over the public once again, I do feel the need to get a pet peeve off my chest regarding the subject. See, with all these new people just discovering Blog Valley High (I am not a subscriber to the term "blogosphere" or "blogoverse" but those terms aren't really my peeve), there are terminology mix ups being made, repeated, and perpetuated into acceptance. And perhaps if I'd spoken up sooner and louder when people started saying "I'm out of pocket" to mean "unreachable" instead of "paying with my own money, not the company's credit card," people would be using the phrase correctly today instead of driving me fucking bonkers by saying one thing and meaning a whole other.

 So listen up, people; especially those of you who have discovered blogging within the last 3 years.

 The word "blog" is short for "weblog." Think of it as a journal. Just as one would write entries into a journal, one writes posts for a blog. The blog itself encompasses the entire make-up of all of the entries. The act of writing can be called blogging but each post is not a blog. Please stop calling each post a blog. Each post is a post. Each post is an entry into the journal. Unless one is James-Joyce kind of prolific, he's presumably not writing an entire journal or blog every fucking time he writes.

 "Read my blog for today." No. No soup for you. This is incorrect.

 "I my latest post on my blog." Gold star.

 It's not a big thing, to be sure. It's minor, it's trivial, and I'd really hate to have to shank a bitch over it. So just stop.