The Peanut Bag from Hell
No one ever told me how hard it was going to be to open up a bag of styrofoam peanuts weighing about one micro once. Picture yourself packaging an eBay box and everything going exactly as planned and then…DUNT…DUNT…DAAAH, you need to open up your first bag of peanuts.
Now I have since learned that styrofoam peanuts can bust open in the mail from less than stellar eBay peanut vendors. Ha!
So what do the better peanut vendors do? They compress four million styrofoam peanuts so they fit into about one millionth of their original size and then spend more money than the peanuts are worth taping the circumference of the peanut bag so as not to lose one of your precious peanuts.
Silly me expects to be able to open my first lousy bag of peanuts easily and continue my effortless eBay packaging procedure. With sharp knife in hand I gently cut into the peanut bag, careful not to damage even one of the peanuts laying close to the outside of the heavily taped bag. What if I damaged a peanut I thought? What are the consequences? A vision of the destruction of my profit margin explodes in my brain so I stick my tongue out, grit my teeth and send out all my extra sensory perception to avoid the dreaded slit peanut.
Five minutes later while each peanut has retained it’s original shape I am absolutely no closer to releasing the damn things from their incredibly tight time capsule. So with heart pounding and eyes closed I apply extra pressure to my knife and cut into the bag of styrofoam nuts worth about negative three cents.
Like an experienced Heart Surgeon I run my scalpel up the abdomen of the peanut bag cutting through the first subcutaneous layer of tape fat only to discover I have drawn no blood! I call out to my nurse for a fresh scalpel and press on toward the prize of extracting the precious peanuts.
Deeper and deeper I plunge into an unknown world of shipping magnificence. This eBay shipping vendor is a master of his craft. I am not worthy to open this perfectly wrapped Styrofoam peanut bag…am I? My mind races for answers and floats to areas unknown, maybe it would be better if I wait and let a professional peanut bag opener do this? That’s it; I’ll look in the Yellow Pages.
Stop it!! Get to work you coward!
Another five minutes go by and my patient is now in critical condition. Hideous gashes abound all over the peanut bag’s circumference. I’ve had enough. Remembering my original goal of filling my box with wonderfully professional looking packing peanuts I come to the climax of my first peanut bag opening experience.
With the courage only our country’s founding fathers could identify with and complete disregard for my styrofoam friends inside the bag, I thrust my knife deep inside and hit pay dirt.
Finally I’m inside…. I can feel the squeaky things. So this is why they’re so special…now I understand Morpheus. I must set these peanuts free. They were born free and were meant to live unburdened from their plastic confines. Now with complete disregard for my own safety I attack the bag. Mind you this is all taking place in my perfectly clean shag carpeted downstairs pool table room.
Hack…Hack…Hack, I spread my feet wide, bend my knees for extra leverage, put my arms on each side of the gory hole I’ve opened and pull apart the plastic. Thrusting my hands inside I start digging out the peanuts. White is everywhere, floating above my head and filling the room with squeakiness.
Like Fido I’m on all fours, my nose now completely inside the bag, hands cupped and digging away, I burst apart the Styrofoam chamber, creating explosion after explosion of unloosed peanut compression. What an experience!! What a release!! This must be eBay nirvana. This is why I am doing all this other crap. Exhausted I flop back on my ass and ponder my surroundings. Man was that fun!
I turn my head and look at my 15-year-old son whom I forgot was playing video games in the other corner of the room. His lower jaw in a dropped position and eyes bulging from their sockets, he appears frozen in time. The video game song plays in the background but his hands are not moving. All his characters in the game have been killed.
Son, I said, “it’s me your father…I’m OK, really I am”. No movement.
“Wake up son”, I needed these peanuts for my new eBay business. We’re going to be rich someday you know. Someday you will understand why I did this. It will all make sense to you”. Ah, the hell with him. Kids don’t understand eBay anyway, back to the peanuts.
I filled my package with the beautiful white Styrofoam peanuts; stood back and admired it’s professional appearance wondering if my customer three thousand miles away will do the same. A half hour later with the vacuum cleaner put away and the room back in its original state I go over what has just happened in my head.
I must have crossed some eBay boundary. I must now be in the nexus of the eBay universe…There’s no return now, onward to the Hand Taper.
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
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hey dad, wish i was there to see the mess. i wouldnt have just stood there with my jaw dropped like steve - i would have been laughing