A worthy use for your duct tape stash

What am I gonna do with this stuff? I have enough duct tape to wrap the Kremlin, but that doesn't seem a priority anymore. With all this plastic sheeting I could protect the California's entire strawberry crop for at least two years, but who wants to help California except Californians?

People who live in the upper mid-West know the perpetual value of these two essential supplies. None of the uses involves voluntary asphyxiation.

Several years ago President Reagan told us that ketchup is a vegetable, where school lunches are concerned. Do you have enough ketchup in your cellar? How about powder milk biscuits? Got enough of them on hand? They go great with ketchup.

I am personally terrified. I'm about to miss my plane because I have been randomly stopped and searched as I approach the airport. If I exhibit any anger I will be in federal custody in a New York minute. Somehow I'm not confident that all this vigilance will protect me from a determined terrorist. But the local authorities are fully capable of turning me into a terrorist if I get angry about their obstructions.

I was born in Indiana. I am obviously a "grandmother" type. I've been listening. I'm scrutinizing everyone around me, ever alert to suspicious behavior. But I'm the one hauled out of line.

The good news is that terrorists have not succeeded in killing another 3,000 Americans. The bad news is that about the only thing you can use to cut duct tape is box cutters.

Can you make gas masks out of duct tape and plastic sheeting? Have our children who are deployed in the Middle East been issued enough duct tape and plastic sheeting? Ketchup?

Not to worry. Armed with duct tape and plastic, we can continue to claim this whole flap has nothing to do with oil. (Just ignore the fact that both duct tape and plastic sheeting are petroleum products.) I heard a guy on the radio claiming that the U.S. has absolutely no designs on Iraqi oil. The existing contracts for that oil are with France and Russia. He said we don't want their oil and we don't need it. He did say that, after the war, everyone's interest will be in the oil fields -- which will be managed by the United States.

I am so relieved. Thank God we're not going to take the oil; we'll just manage it.

Does the name Halliburton ring a bell? Wasn't "managing" energy products what Enron did for a living?

Reality check: Our children are deployed, preparing to teach Saddam a lesson, throw away his nasty weapons (where is "away"?), and make the Middle East free for global commerce. It will cost only a few billion dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives. Apparently it will also cost us the undying enmity of every non-American on the planet.

The administration has succeeded, marginally, in blackmailing and bribing a few heads of state into climbing aboard the war machine. The same administration is working hard to give even more tax breaks to its biggest campaign contributors. In wartime it's impossible to fund the federally mandated programs passed by Congress to be carried out by the states. Homeland Security is not funded in border states. "Wartime" might last for the rest of our lives.

I'm looking for volunteers, well-supplied patriots willing to go to Washington, D.C. Take your duct tape and plastic. There are buildings, institutions and individuals who are crying out to be hermetically sealed. Don't take box-cutters with you.

-- Write to Sheila Stoll c/o Seniority, the Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright