The ghosts of Christmas tape. And scissors. All my life I've battled with scissors and tape. It must be hereditary because I remember when I was living at home, my mom was always yelling about who took the effin scissors?! And where was the bloody tape!? Hey, she had kids to blame it on. But I don't. So I have to assume there's a ghost. It couldn't possibly be ME who's the problem? Nope, nope. Every year before Christmas, I must buy at least four rolls of tape. I usually use a whole one. And then I'm left to wander the halls of my big old house* looking for the other three. How hard can this be? They all come in the same package. They divide and conquer, apparently. Right before Thanksgiving I bought a couple rolls of wrapping paper and some tape. Yesterday, I was preparing to wrap my first Christmas gift of the season. I went to that bag in the closet where the wrapping paper is. Wrapping paper. Check! Accounted for. Tape? Nope. Not in the bag. Now in defense of the ghost, I'm pretty sure I probably put THAT roll where I thought I wouldn't forget where it was. Yeah. Right. Now the scissors. I bought two pair of scissors a couple months ago. Both are accounted for. But before that, I'd spent months wondering what happened to my favorite pair. We have lots of dud pairs of scissors in the drawer. Two, perhaps. Why don't we throw them out? I don't know. Maybe I will. Today. Because everytime I'm in the middle of some involved project (which is not unoften) and I ask David to bring me some scissors, he ALWAYS brings me a dud pair. Always. Which triggers the conversation about what happened to the good scissors. I've given up on them. They've run off somewhere with the tape. The irony of all this is that there is a roll of tape I can always find. It's always in its rightful place. And that's the one that doesn't tear well. I go to tear off a piece and it makes tracks in the tape and then slides every which way. It's always an ordeal. I guess all this is a good case for gift bags. But I like the wrapping. It's fun and satisfying. And I'm pretty good at it. So I'll just struggle along with my crappy tape. Perhaps I'll find all those rolls eventually. Before they turn to dust. Somewhere out there, the ghost and the tape and that favorite pair of scissors are having a good laugh. But that's all right. * There's only one hall and the house isn't big. I just thought that would add to the charm and liklihood of a tape n scissors ghost.