Insanity, one bubble at a time

There’s something about bubble wrap isn’t there? It’s such a great stress reliever. I mean it’s not as therapeutic as other things like sex, drugs or breaking stuff. On the other hand, as far as cost goes, it’s way cheaper than any of those alternatives. If you work in an office that routinely gets UPS or FedEx shipments, it’s pretty much a guarantee that there will be sheets and sheets of this free stress relief kicking around in the vicinity of the mailroom.

And I’ll admit, I partake in the ‘wrap as much as the next guy. I find it’s good for about thirty seconds of mindless entertainment, though I approach it differently than most people. I actually don’t derive pleasure from the dull popping noise each bubble makes as you squeeze it. My enjoyment is a bit more subtle. I like to gently squeeze the bubble with the thumb and forefinger on each hand until a second bubble starts to form on it. You know what I’m talking about? It kind of grows off the main bubble like a pimple. The plastic starts stretching out until the slightly cloudy material becomes perfectly clear and then it pops. And that pop, my friend, is ten times more satisfying than if you’d just gone at the main bubble like a seventeen-year-old who’s just seen his first boob. The sound is a little bit higher pitched, like the sound of a cap gun, and it signifies that you applied just the right amount of pressure. Too much pressure and the main bubble pops with is signature dull snap. Too little pressure and the clear pimple you’ve formed just kind of fizzles out anticlimactically with no sound at all. But executed precisely, that pimple cracks open with a satisfying BIH-TZ.

But even a sound as gratifying as that will, again, only entertain me for about thirty seconds before I go off in search of hookers, heroin and old computer monitors to break. I’m kidding of course… old computer monitors have mercury in them which poisons the environment. Of course, there are some people in this world who view bubble wrap as some kind of metaphysical Rubix Cube. They concentrate on those bumpy pieces of plastic so intently that you’d swear they were trying to discern the secrets of the universe from the broken capsules. And they truly would spend all day popping these things if you gave them the opportunity and a Staples giftcard.

There was a girl I worked with at a production company in New York a few years back who had just such a fascination. And one day she got the motherload. A huge shipment of tapes came in the mail, and protecting this cargo was a ten-foot-long, three-foot-wide virtual throw rug of bubble wrap. And this chick went… to… town on the thing, alternating between popping a series of individual bubbles to twisting a large handful into a fast sequence of firecracker snaps. And mind you, she was the receptionist in our office. In the waiting room where she was conducting this occupational therapy were producers, a casting director and multiple actors preparing for an audition. But she just kept popping, cheerfully oblivious of the entire room staring at her in sawed off amazement.

A couple months ago, I was working late and ordered delivery from a sandwich shop down the road. When the delivery guy got there, he spotted a rather large sheet of bubble wrap sitting on the table. After handing me my food, he said, “Oh wow, bubble wrap!” then picked it up and started popping the bubbles. Okay, no problem. I went into the next room to get the petty cash to, figuring he would get his therapy in, then leave after I paid him. Well as I handed him the money, he didn’t even reach out his hand to accept it. He just kept right on popping.

And then he said (and I swear to you this is verbatim and not at all embellished), “You gotta give me a few minutes man. I love this stuff. I had a sheet of this at my house last week and I spent like two hours popping it.”

I laughed and said, “Oh, there you go,” which is what I always say when I either don’t care about what somebody is saying or think they’re a complete freak but don’t want to say so. In this case, obviously, both situations applied. So I went over to my dinner, unwrapped my meatball sub, took the straw out of its paper and stuck it in my soda, took a drink, took a bite, took another drink and finally said, “Dude, you can take that with you if you want.”

You’d swear I’d just offered him one of the expensive computers I was busy prepping. His face lit up and he gushed, “Really? Oh wow thanks man, that’s awesome.” He grabbed his tip and walked back to his car, popping with the utmost concentration the entire way. I locked the door behind me then went looking for things to break.