The 1000 Feet of Bubble Wrap

It all started when I received my Grandfather's chairs. I came home one day to find a UPS delivery notice on my door. I called UPS and asked them to deliver the chairs to my workplace the next day. They said no problem, but the chairs didn't arrive the next day at work nor did I get another notice at home. I called them again that night and asked them to hold delivery of the chairs --- we were expecting clients in the office the next day, and it wouldn't do to have bulky packages of chairs arriving in our small office. Again, UPS indicated that this would be no problem. However, the packages arrived at work the next day --- fortunately while we were out at lunch. Our office manager managed to disguise them as computer boxes before we returned from lunch.

I was very excited to unpack the packages at home. The chairs fit perfectly into my living room. Now there was just the small problem of disposing of the 1000 feet of bubble wrap.

The size of the pile of bubble wrap was approximately half the size of my bedroom. In California, anything that large is required to pay rent or get out. Obviously, there was no question of my saving the bubble wrap in case it would come in handy "some day".

Of course, my first thought was simply to pop it, and I began doing so in my bedroom. However, I could see the pain this was causing my roommate as these extra large sized bubbles exploded and the sound echoed through our cavernous apartment. I could bring them to work, but again, this would disturb my officemates. Hmmm.

I could just throw it all away unpopped. But no, the size of the unpopped bubble wrap was the same size as the dumpster that holds garbage for our entire apartment building for a whole week.

I'll see if the Salvation Army wants it. I load it into my car and make a trip down there. They don't want it.

Ok. I'll just leave it in the car. I can pop it while I drive. This will be great -- I can get rid of the bubble wrap and take out my road rage at the same time!

Of course, my only driving is to the gym and back. In this short distance I can only pop 3 feet of bubble wrap. OK, let's do the math. If I pop 3 feet of bubble wrap a day, I should get through all of it in --- about a year. In the meantime, I can't carry anything in my car. Hmmm.

In my every spare moment, I pop more bubbles. My thumb muscles are killing me --- I didn't even know I had thumb muscles before. Surely this must be useful for something. Is there an Olympics event in thumb strength? I'm well on my way.

But, what to do about the bubble wrap??

Dan and Tao invite me over to celebrate Chinese New Year. Traditionally, one explodes fireworks on Chinese New Year, but they live at ground zero of the Oakland fire of 1991. Just striking a match in this dry area brings in the Fire Departments of three different counties.

Just before midnight, I hand everyone at the party several feet of bubble wrap. Then, we all start popping at once. The aggregate noise did more than justice to any fireworks.

I left Dan and Tao with 1000 feet of popped bubble wrap strewn across their floors and downstairs neighbors who would never speak to them again. But I was free, FREE, of the 1000 feet of bubble wrap.