RIDING DRAG / Coordinated

My family laughs at me for buying duct tape in different colors. I take their ribbing with a grain of salt; but I have only one question. If pink and yellow duct tape is so humorous to you guys, why is it that the colored ones are always the rolls missing from my tool kit and truck?


I cannot explain my fascination with colored tape. It must be a girl thing, like high heels and nail polish. It makes me feel coordinated. I was going to say ‘stylish’ but that really isn’t true and might make me sound a little strange. I have a hidden stash of various colors of rolls, but don’t count on me revealing where it is hidden as it is a closely guarded secret along with where I hide the chocolate covered caramels and a bottle of emergency Dr. Pepper.
I have fixed more things than I count with colored tape. There have been repairs to radiator hoses, camper windows, tarps and toys with blue while yellow fixed a swing, a slicker and was made into a make-shift dog water bowl. Then there was white which fixed clogging shoes and purple which repaired a tear in a stage curtain. The weed-eater repair was inspired as I had no orange and instead used black in tribute to OSU. (Not because I am a football fan but because it makes my OU graduate cousin crazy to see orange and black.) I’ve used to it fix a tent, boots, a purse, the porch light, a bike tire, a lamp, made the kids book covers, hats and a basket when we were at an Easter egg hunt and had left theirs at home.

The veterinary uses are endless from wrapping a packed hoof to keep it dry to temporary tags on calves being sorted to different pens for shots and weaning. I used it to wrap my fractured wrist years ago when my cast crumbled after it got wet while I was feeding. And I once used it instead of stitches on my knee and barely have a scar. I heard you could use it as a beauty aid by substituting it when waxing your legs but I think that would truly be going too far. Still, I can’t imagine doing without it around here as I use practically every day.

Just because I purchase a wide variety of colors for a wide variety of types of uses, doesn’t mean I am strange or obsessive. I like to think I am creative and resourceful. I also think that I do not have to explain myself as I have no truly bad habits other than not being able to pass up a new color of duct tape and collecting pennies you mash in those machines at tourist places.

I’m prepared to take the ribbing and smile when they call me the ‘duct tape queen’. But as Queen I demand some respect. After all, it is my tape that fixes your stuff. So listen up family of mine! I know that deer season is coming up and that you have deer blinds in need of repair, but someone had better make sure my new roll of camouflage tape is returned unharmed, ASAP! You have twenty-four hours. If it is not back in my possession please make sure you have something you can use to cut through 6 layers of pink tape (it was on sale so I bought a case) which I will use to seal the doors of your truck with your deer rifle inside. I’m not sure how many layers it will be wrapped in, but be aware that I recently found four rolls of fluorescent lime green. Not so funny now, is it?



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RIDING DRAG with DEBRA COPPINGER HILL is featured each week at ALWAYS COWBOY where Debra is a Resident Western Poet. Join her and her Cowboy Friends for Cowboy Poetry, News & Events. http://alwayscowboy.net/debra_coppinger_hill_poetry.html