A Man, a Van, and Double-sided Tape

On Saturday morning, my wife informed me that on Sunday she was going to be driving several of her co-workers to a play in our mini van. She asked if I would please clean the van for her when she came home from work that evening and reattach the weather stripping that the monkeys pulled off.

Yes, I said monkeys.

We live about 15 minutes from a wonderful place called African Lion Safari. It has been around since I was a kid and I have fond memories of going there with my family and on class trips. The premise is that you drive your car through the game reserve and see lions, giraffes, cheetahs, rhinos and several other animals out your windows.

Most of the animals sit in the grass or sleep as you go by...the entertainment value is off the chart. And then you come to the monkeys. The monkeys never sleep and if they're sitting when you drive past it's only because they're plotting new ways to destroy your car. As soon as they can, they launch themselves onto your hood or rear bumper and immediately get to work, pulling on your windshield wipers and antennae. Their goal is to break things, but sometimes will be satisfied with merely bending things before moving on.

They are particularly fond of weather stripping and will do anything to pull it loose. They know you are powerless to stop them and delight in showing you their bare asses as they systematically dismantle your vehicle.

As you may have guessed, my wife takes my kids through the park on a regular basis and the weather stripping now needs to be tucked inside the windows, so that it doesn't slap the outside of the van as you drive down the road. This gives my kids a chance to pull on/hang from it from the inside, which slowly eats away at my sanity.

So, I headed off to Canadian Tire to buy something that I could use to put the weather stripping back in place. I explained to the guy in the automotive department what I needed and deliberately avoided any mention of monkeys. I should note that whenever I speak of or even think of these animals, they are no longer monkeys, they are "god damned monkeys."

As I vacuumed out the van and wondered what to do with the five maps of Ontario I had found seemingly everywhere, my mind drifted to the weather stripping problem. I hoped that the glue would undo what the god damned monkeys had done, but I just wasn't sure. I know the product was designed for weather stripping, but it didn't specifically mention god damned monkeys on the package. Perhaps there was a product designed for that? Perhaps there was no defense against god damned monkeys?

My wife had it in her head that double-sided tape would be a better solution than god damned monkey glue. As always, she had let me buy the glue before making it clear that tape was the only solution that would ever appease her. I had run out of time to go back to the store, so on Sunday it was arranged that the glue would be returned and she would get some god damned monkey double-sided tape.

The weather stripping had been held down by double-sided tape originally, so the first thing I had to do was remove what was left of it. It was hard to get off; a knife scratched the paint and my fingernails were taking a beating. I bet if I had god damned monkey fingers it would be a breeze.

After a long while, I had the tape off and was ready to put a new strip down. Everything went well there and I was ready to put the weather stripping back in place. As I pushed the black plastic onto the tape, I repeated the soothing phrase, "Try and pull this off you god damned monkeys," which seemed to give me extra strength.

The job was done with about five minutes to spare.

Enjoy your play dear.