About a month ago, while paying the visit to the chicken lady at Mercado Cuauhtemoc, I spotted a guy selling paper goods and remembered that we needed plastic wrap. Without thinking much about it, I picked out one for 20 pesos (less than two bucks) and took it home.
I have since cursed every day of this plastic wrap’s existence. This is it below.
(Yeah, Wezer Shine! I’ll “Wezer Shine” you, in the eye!)
It’s not that it’s not sticky. It’s too sticky. It clings to everything. It clings to its own cardboard tube, causing holes when I try to peel off a piece. It clings to my fingers. It clings nicely to a bowl, but that result is not worth the horror it takes to get there.
This box has no metal teeth. Did you know they even make plastic wrap boxes without metal teeth? I didn’t. This means I have to dig out a pair of scissors every time I want a piece of plastic wrap. And of course the wrap clings to the scissors, too.
When I do manage to cut off a piece — it took me awhile, but I learned the secret’s in the angle of the scissors, juxtaposed with the angle of the wrap — the plastic immediately shrinks back onto its tube. (Like a snake scurrying back into its hovel!) So if I want to cut another piece, I can’t tell where I started. There are no seams, people. NO SEAMS.
After two months of this crizzap, I decided to say basta. Last time I was in the States, I bought a tube of plastic wrap from Target. It looked really pretty. Especially when placed daintily on a table runner.
I cannot wait to use it.
Who said that living in Mexico isn’t filled with little pleasures like this? BTW, real SaranWrap, the kind that doesn’t stick to itself and comes in a box with a serrated metal edge, is available in stores here. Hie yourself over to Superama.
Costco: Kirkland Brand Plastic Film. Has a slide bar for cutting which works pretty well. The sheets are very wide.
Clings only when desired.
Saludos,
Don Cuevas
In my forty years of existence, I have learned by (bad) experience that there are at least four things one should not buy generics of on either side of the U.S. – Mexico border:
1) Q-tips (a.k.a. cotonetes)
2) Band-Aids (a.k.a. curitas)
3) Saran Wrap (a.k.a. celofan)
4) Reynolds Wrap (a.k.a. papel aluminio)
The generics simply do not perform and you end up in utter frustration time and again.
Oh Target, how I miss thee! I am enjoying your blog. Kudos and keep writing!
Thanks so much Sarah! And yeah, Target rules…. I kind of want to spent three hours in there, every time I go. It’s probably good that there isn’t one in Mexico City.