So It Goes: Making contact

But I was powerless to prevent it.  I told her that the best way of handling the situation was to get surround herself by four people of equal strength and sensibility and then, using a most delicate hand, lay the precious item in the centre.

I was talking, of course, about the delicate art of covering a book with contact. Whoever thought of getting some plastic and making it sticky is both a genius and a jester in equal combination.  And I am sure they have had many a snicker at the difficulty this miracle of our century has imposed.

My daughter is a novice at all things to do with covering books.  When she gets married next year, she will inherit a five year old in the process and she was helping my almost almost step grand daughter cover her school books.  She rightfully thought to come to the expert and so she asked me for some tips in handling contact.

They say the best way to learn is by making mistakes and I have made enough mistakes (and ruined enough books) to know that contact and I aren’t good friends.  I know never to buy the stuff again.  But this was her journey and maybe, she might be something of a whizz with the stuff.  Maybe she has inherited the librarian aunt genes and knows about sticky tape as well.

My best advice is to have four people lightly grasp each corner, pulling sufficiently to take out all those bumps and ridges but not to ping it out of your grasp, lay the contact down (sticky side up – some people just have to be told) and place the book somewhere near its centre.

Right there, there are lots of problems, especially for those approaching on an angle and who may misjudge the centre (okay, that’s me), completely throwing any successful origami of the corners into confusion from the get go.  And then, there are those little micro dust gritty bits that seem to magnetically pull themselves towards anything sticky, despite every effort towards cleanliness.

But mine is a daughter who asks cooking tips from her father and rarely needs the wisdom I have gleaned in a life as learned as my own.  And so, I cast out my pearls of wisdom, sticky though they may be, hoping they would fall on a ground free of grit and consternation.

- Linda Muller