Wednesday 16 December 2009

The Gift-Wrap Rap


My nerves and tongue are snapping as I do my Christmas wrapping
And my language and the air are turning blue
As I make a nice, neat packet of my sister's sparkly jacket,
Then find that two hands simply will not do.

As my left hand grimly holds the reindeer-patterned folds,
My right gropes for the Sellotape in vain,
Just to find the stuff is stuck in a nail-defying tuck
And the end is never to be seen again.

I hear the paper rip as I release my grip
To go scrabbling at the tape with huff and puff.
Then behind my back the parcel spills out across the carpet,
Collecting lots of cat hairs, dust and fluff.

I shake and brush and blow (thank God she'll never know),
Then I reach for sticky tape with happy grin,
For I've thought of something clever; I'll cut several strips together
And I'll park them for the moment on my chin.

Aha! This is the ticket! I can hold and fold and stick it
And rip my chin hairs out for free as well.
But as I get underway, Sod's Law comes into play
With a ding-dong-bloody-bing-bong on the bell

I get a funny look as I sign the postie's book;
In fact his attitude is downright weird.
But as I pass the mirror, I scream aloud and shiver
At the sight of mad old bag with sticky beard.

At last my wrapping's done, though my chin looks like a plum.
As I glug my well-earned wine I vow, "No more!"
Next year I won't go crackers, I'll just pay the extra ackers
To have the blinking lot wrapped by the store.


MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE, AND MAKE SURE YOU RECYCLE YOUR PAPER FOR NEXT YEAR!

7 comments:

Jackie Sayle said...

Excellent! Love it! I'm still chuckling. At least you didn't make the mistake of putting the tape on your lip, as I once did years ago. Skinned lips are very painful. I tend to hang strips of tape off the edge of the kitchen table when wrapping presents these days.

hydra said...

Since I wrote the poem, I've managed to chop my finger with the scissors, instead of cutting the wrapping tape. Doh!

Jackie Sayle said...

You silly woman!

Teresa Ashby said...

This is brilliant.
My trick at the moment seems to be to leave a little bit of sticky tape not stuck down so it gets stuck on other presents and I end up with a ripped up tangle of paper and tape!

Jackie Sayle said...

I'm glad to know that it's not just me who makes a dog's dinner of wrapping presents.:-)

Perovskia said...

Very cool :)

Jackie Sayle said...

I've printed your wrapping wrap out now and my Mum and all of her friends are identifying with and enjoying it.