Envelopes

On Mondays I type about things that I really, really like. Today, I decided to write about something that freaks me out.

Envelopes. Yes, really!! Well, maybe not the envelope itself so much, though I am a little wary after getting several paper cuts from them, but rather the gluey strip along the back... you know that foul tasting band that you are expected to lick. Well, not me, no thank you!

I used to lick them, and then make the mandatory, "Oh, that tastes awful. I would rather have fluoride" look. But then, one fateful day Darcy told me that envelopes are stored in large, dirty warehouses and all day long, cockroaches crawl all over the envelopes and the part of the envelope that they really like is the really gluey strip. Sure, why wouldn't they? They like garbage, why wouldn't they like the glue strip? He told me that the glue strip is full of cockroach feces and every time you lick one you are essentially, indirectly licking a cockroach's bum. Eeewww... I don't want to do that!

And then, as it is prone to do, my mind started to conjure up more involved, and more scary situations. What if, for instance, the cockroaches were not just pooping on the glue strip but laying their eggs there? What if, every time I licked an envelope, I was getting a tongue full of cockroach eggs. AND THEN... what if, every time I got a tongue full of cockroach eggs, I swallowed them unknowingly and they started to hatch in my belly. AND THEN... once they hatched it turned into that horrifying vignette from that terrible Creep Show movie (the one that to this day traumatizes me after watching it at a seventh grade slumber party, where I had to pretend that I wasn't terrified, that I was cool, no worries, just cold and therefore snuggled into my sleeping bag because on this July night in a sweltering hot basement I was just a little chilly and therefore in need of having said sleeping bag wrapped firmly around my face, not because of the terror, but because of the chill in the air - and oh, we are going to go out soon and play hide and seek in the dark scary woods? GREAT!) where cockroaches busted out of the guy and took over his house. *shudder*

So... I no longer lick envelopes. I use tape to seal them.

Just something to think about on a February day!