What Now

Who knew my office was the site of such broad physical comedy?

The other day I was asked to laminate a couple of signs. I hate laminating because A) I suck at it B) we don't have a machine and C) it almost always looks bad no matter how careful I am with it. This particular assignment sucked more than usual because the signs were huge. I don't know if you've ever had to wrestle with contact paper or not, but you probably know that even if you're really careful, it stretches, bubbles and wrinkles like crazy. The signs I made were roughly 36" x 46" or so and trying to control a piece of contact paper that big is completely impossible. I had already had to print another sign to replace one I had ruined, so my sense of humor about the job had already departed.

So I got the new sign off of the printer, stuck it to the backing board and proceeded to apply the contact paper. It went beautifully for about one foot. Then I realized I'm going to have to climb up on top of the drafting table with the sign and stretch the laminate very carefully over the paper so that I could smooth it out. After I make sure no one was coming, I climbed up and ended up kneeling on top of the sign its self. As I backed away, holding the edges of the stuff, I realize I'm running out of table. Not wanting to fall, I turned my head to see how much more room I had and I realize that the contact paper is wrinkling, so I straighten up and pull the paper up again to fix it. As I raise the contact paper, I look down to make sure everything is in the right spot and my head bumps the contact paper which firmly sticks to my hair. So I'm kneeling on the table with a giant sheet of adhesive paper stuck to my head. Nooooooooo problem. I pulled backwards to get my hair free (ouch, by the way) and when I did, the motion caused my badge to swing up and stick to the paper. At this point I just started cursing. I'm not going to lie. I was still stuck to the stupid sign. I couldn't let go of the contact paper and there was no one to help me! So I pulled back to get my badge loose and the beaded lanyard I was wearing shattered. Beads go everwhere. I gave up. I just dropped the laminate and started smoothing it down, lumps, bumps and all. Oh, and my badge was still stuck to it. So I got down to the edge and had to figure out how to get my badge out from under the plastic without ripping anything. With that accomplished, I tried to finish laminating, but then I realized there were BEADS all underneath the plastic! Curse again! So I had to go back and carefully cut the beads out from under the plastic. If they hadn't needed those signs so quickly, I would have probably burnt it with glee. : )