You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Super Flex Tape.
It’s a commercial for tape. An entire 1 minute long testimonial to the adhesive power of a tape so strong, it is apparently endorsed by NASA as a back up for solar panel repairs.
I stare at the dumpling pitch man with the thinning hair line and bulging waist line.
He is swinging his arms around wildly and pointing at a huge fish tank, big enough to hold a family sneaking over the border.
Water is gushing out of a hole in the side of the clear plexiglass and it is splashing into a second container built to keep the water from slopping all over the floor.
I see a big graphic roll across the screen. Just $19.99 the bright red super says, and I too can have this magic tape sent directly to my home.
Such a deal, right?
I stare at the screen.
Flex Tape?
What the hell is Flex Tape? Why do I need this?
The sound is down and I’m missing half the ad.
Why do I even care? For some reason, I cannot look away. It’s a train wreck of home improvement that I suddenly need. I could easily avert my gaze, stare at the window at the massive snow flakes falling on this Saturday morning. I try, but the silent visuals of the infomercial jerk my head back to the screen.
I watch as the plump salesman rips a piece of super flex tape and holds it next to the hole in the tank.
What is he going to do?, I wonder to myself.
Surely that piece of tape is not going to stop that surging water fall of liquid pouring through the glass as if shot out of a turned on garden hose?
How could a piece of tape adhere to a saturated piece of glass with a constant flow of water thrusting out of a 50 gallon tank of water. It’s under pressure, squeezing through the hole, exploding through the surgically cut hole.
I try to turn away, but I cannot. This is incredible, I think to myself. Will it work? Is it even possible? Sure we landed a man on the moon, but this is tape and that is water, and I just don’t think it is physically possible.
I think about finding the remote and unmuting the television. I need to hear this blow hard. What is he saying?
I quickly decide looking for the remote will waste time and I will have to stop watching this infomercial debacle. I don’t want to miss anything so I stare at the ad.
I stare at the screen as the dumpling pitchman pushes the black tape into the flow of water. The water splashes around the man’s hand as liquid pressure fights against the sticky barrier now covering the liquefied hole. He holds the tape in place for a moment and then slowly removes his hand. The tape buldges in the center but the leak is patched. In 2 seconds a fire hose of leaking energy is contained and the magic flex tape is holding onto the slippery, smooth surface as if it was melted into the nuclear compound of the glass.
Wow?
I’m spellbound, like a monkey staring at shiny hypnotic bananas.
This is some kind of tape, I think to myself. .No, it’s not just tape, it’s Super Amazing Flex tape!
Just $19.99 the ad flashes.
But there’s more.
How could there be more, I wonder. What else could this tape do? It doesn’t cure cancer or remove anal warts? It is tape. It is sticky and pliable, and has proven to adhere to a water fall of explosive liquid. But More? I stare at the tape. What’s it made of? Does the CIA know this stuff exists? Was it made by the Chinese.
It is one step thicker than duct tape, and a tad less tough than pre chewed meat.
If only I had a shipping container filled with water with a big hole in the side of it, I think. Then this product would be worth ordering.
I am about to stop caring, when the Super Flex Tape fat boy grabs a chain saw. He is suddenly cutting an aluminum row boat in half. The metallic boat falls to the studio floor in what I imagine would be a crash.
Then he pulls out the super wide, super super Flex Tape that I get if I order NOW.
He pushes the two halves of the boat together, then secures it with the super wide Flex Tape. The bottom of the row boat now looks like a silver skunk with a wide black stripe down the center.
What? That won’t hold, I think to myself.
Suddenly the man is in a lake speeding across the water. A helicopter is over head and it shows the row boat powering across the smooth lake held together by super strong,super Flex Tape.
If only the Captain of the Titanic had Super Flex Tape, that iceberg incident would have been just a footnote in history.
If Flex Tape was around in the North Atlantic that night, Leonardo DiCaprio’s famous line “I’m the King of the World,” would have made little to no sense.
The commercial fades to black and a new ad comes on for Charmin TP.
My thoughts turn from patching the side of an aluminum trailer home with duct tape to something more immediate.
Life’s Crazy™