The Joy of Duct Tape

When my girls went to their sororities' anything but clothes parties, they constructed garments made from hefty bags and duct tape. The duct tape enabled the garments to be worn for hours without a wardrobe malfunction.

There is a scene in the movie Apollo 13 where the NASA scientists empty all the tools available to the astronauts traveling on the crippled spaceship on to a table. Among the tools was a roll of duct tape. Duct tape brought the astronauts home.

Shortly after I gutted and remodeled my girls’ bathroom a leak sprang up on the ceiling below it. When the plumber cut away the sheetrock he determined that it was the drainage pipe. The correct way to fix the leak was to rip up the new tile floor in the girl’s new bathroom. I inquired if there was another way. He said temporarily. And he reluctantly put a lot of pipe goo around the leaky fitting and then wrapped it with duct tape. He promised that it wouldn’t last. That was ten years ago.

I am not sure what exactly duct tape is made out of. All I know is that the adhesive is so sticky a scissor cannot cut through it without leaving behind substantial residue . No substance is stronger or can withstand more abuse. It is a miracle material rivaled only by WD-40 and gorilla glue.

When Jasper went to the vet in the last weeks of his life she turned to the dog and jokingly said how much more duct tape can I use to keep you alive. It’s probably the only instance I know of where duct tape could not save the day---for everything else, it is the universal fixer.