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Now available for preorder:
The San Francisco Panorama.
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[Send your open letters to websubmissions@mcsweeneys.net.] - - - - A N O P E N L E T T E R T O
June 8, 2004 Dear Saran Wrap, I need a clean break from you. You have kept everything fresh in my life for a long time. With you around, dessert for breakfast was never hard. You kept the juice in my watermelons and the zing in my spaghetti. I am so used to going into the kitchen and knowing that you will be there—always in your red—waiting to unroll for me. And the sound when I stripped you ... In Europe, you were my "cling film"; in Brazil, my "second skin." I got you mixed up in a lot of sticky messes over the years and I'm sorry for it. But there were also times when you hurt me, Saran Wrap, and you must have known, though you never said. Remember when I was in such a rush to get the egg sandwiches ready for our day at Schlitterbahn? I had forgotten that you never do well around water. Don't pretend that wasn't deliberate in the kitchen that morning. Because I can see right through you, Saran Wrap: the way you clung to the roll, the way you would simply not hold the sandwiches. You cut my fingers with those jagged teeth. I bled all over the egg. Why didn't you just say you didn't want to go? Still, I should never have shouted at you that way. I should never have said you were nothing but a waste of fucking plastic. I knew it was over between us after dinner the other night. You couldn't bear my jaunty mood, my humming "Bohemian Rhapsody" as I filled the dishwasher, could you? All I asked was that you help me store the chicken in the casserole dish. And that's when you started. You broke down into little pieces right there in my hands. Then you wanted me to fix your seam. But I couldn't find the seam, Saran Wrap. There was no seam! I cut you—please, please forgive me—I took the scissors and I cut into you. I had done it before when I could not get a grip on Scotch tape. It was easy to strip Scotch tape with the scissors. But you just frayed more and more. We tussled desperately. I tried to throw you to the ground but you wouldn't let go of my hand. Thank God I charged out of the kitchen when I did. I was shaking while putting on the Band-Aid in the bathroom, but I made a rational decision, right then and there, to dump you. It's not you, Saran Wrap; it's us. We just can't seem to get along. I've seen you with other people and you're great. I teared up reading Ann Parkinson's testimonial on your website today (it's weird you have your own website now). She said you rode the fifty miles from her sister-in-law's house wedged under the roof rack of her car—while Mr. Parkinson floored it at "sixty-five miles an hour"—to save a tray of brownies and avert what could have been a nasty accident. "And the brownies weren't even broken," Saran Wrap—you probably refused to even eat one. That's so like you. Do you know how happy you could make someone like that? Saran Wrap, I brought some Tupperware home last night. If you are in the kitchen this morning, you might hear a shtupping sound. I trust you will not get all clingy. I'll call you sometime, Rob Curran - - - -
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