I have a rant that I just must get off my chest. It’s this: how can three BRAND NEW rolls of
PLUMBER’S TAPE (PTFE thread seal tape) disappear from my house?
In the past few days, I have run into untold rolls of plumber’s tape
while attempting to find real tape in my house.
Plumber’s tape, for those of you who are not familiar with
do-it-yourself plumbing, is a plastic tape that has the consistency of
electrical tape except thinner and nonadhesive. A person uses it to cover the threads of a pipe in order to help it seal
better. Static electricity allows it to stick to the pipe threads while a person screws a compression nut onto the pipe. Plumber’s putty does the same
thing, but tape is less messy and lasts longer. Remember the adhesive tape that used to come in those automobile first aid kits? It comes on a roll like that, but don't make the mistake of using plumber's tape instead of first aid tape because your bandage will come apart and fall onto the floor, leaving your bleeding, germ-laden wound exposed and your gauze no longer sterile.
I just cannot understand what the allure can be for
something like plumber’s tape. It is
plastic, very weak and breakable plastic.
The only uses for it that I can imagine would be to line the threads of
pipes and possibly make some sort of mummy-like fashion for a Barbie doll. That’s all.
Now, I can understand how
something like this could get lost in the Walker House of Chaos, but still – a
couple of weeks ago, I could find at least a couple of rolls of it. Now I can find nothing. And it’s not like I need huge amounts of
it. All I need is an inch or two. It isn’t that it is expensive – you can get a
roll or two for a buck. It’s the
PRINCIPAL of the thing! This is
maddening. My new dishwasher is sitting
in my living room, my old one is in the middle of the kitchen. I have fixed the problems with the plumbing,
the electrical and the drainage and now… NO TAPE???!!!
All I can imagine is that my boys have decided that
plumber’s tape can be used for far more purposes than just Egyptian Barbie
clothes and that numerous experiments must be done with it in order to determine
how it can possibly be used to take over the world. I can imagine clandestine, middle-of-the-night tensile strength tests going on in my boys' room. Things being said like, "Let's tie one end of the tape to the top bunk and the other to the cat and see if it breaks when the cat jumps down." or, better yet, "Let's see what happens when we wrap the cat in this stuff - maybe we can make Legos stick to them." Of course, it's entirely possible that they read the installation
directions to the dishwasher and felt that it would be important to confiscate
all of the plumber’s tape to provide safe keeping for it until I needed to use
it, at which time they would immediately forget where they put it. I don’t know.
I can just see in my mind’s eye a middle-aged overweight
white lady lying on the floor of Wal-Mart at 1 in the morning. She has just passed out from exhaustion,
after having driven miles through the worst areas of town to the nearest
Wal-Mart and then wandered the aisles for that one elusive item that would
allow her to finish her project before daybreak. When she comes to, she mutters the words
“plumber’s tape,” and then suddenly expires, leaving store employees, family
members and friends to figure out the importance of such an odd and seemingly
pointless object. I don’t know, but I
think it might make a good film.
