Listen up, Jared – is it Jared? You've...you've got a little ketchup on your nametag there. I think it might have dripped down from the stain in your half-grown crustache and onto your sternum while you scarfed down handfuls of greasy french fries all afternoon.

Look, Jared, I've been standing in line here for about four hours now, so I'd prefer you pay attention. I bought this roll of Stik 'n' Stay masking tape here yesterday and, son, I'm just going to put it out there for you. This is some of the most embarrassing masking tape I've seen in my entire life.

Frankly, my friend, I would be ashamed to sell this masking tape to even non-discerning and unintellingent customers. And then there are the people like me, who find your lack of quality masking tape simply insulting.

Let me make this a little clearer for you, since you seem to be replaying the theme from "The A-Team" over and over in your head as I tell you this. Actually, first, let me ask you, Jared, what would you consider to be the two main functions of a roll of masking tape? I'll answer that question for you, since you look like you may be slowly choking on a hunk of congealed chicken fat stuck in your throat. The two main functions of the product are masking and taping. Let me repeat that for you, since your ears are plainly filled with enough waxy buildup to make a life-sized replica of the Pieta: Masking and taping.

I'll start with masking. Let's just take a big slab of this tape here -- like so -- and I'm going to affix it to my face, with some makeshift eyeholes and a little mouthhole, and some big ears for flare…and…there we go. Now, tell me Jared, can you still make out my features? Is my face fully obscured or has the purchase of this only semi-opaque masking tape entirely ruined my budding career in lucha libre wrestling as a high-flying sensation named El Gringo Machismo?

Let me tell you, the fans at Burro Grande Semi-Professional Wrestling did not appreciate being able to make out my highly defined cheekbones. It ruined the illusion, they said.

That's pathetic, Jared. If I could make a decently identity-hiding mask and had passed that course in vigilantism I took at the community college, I would have broken right in here and knocked over the snack bar's soda fountains right here in front of you, you unwashed cretin. And I would have felt good about it. Imagine all that 7-Up right there, all over the floor. That would have been on you.

Are you listening or is the buzzing in your brain so loud from the time you sat on the speakers at the Crue concert that you have permanent nerve damage?

Let's move on to the second aspect of this joke of a product: the taping. This one roll of masking tape has ruined no fewer than six VCRs, four voice recorders, two 9 millimeter projectors, some very expensive editing equipment and a Doberman. And I barely got half an episode of CSI: Miami out of it.

Jared! Hey! Pay attention! You can spend all the time you want picturing your sister naked, but not on the job, partner. This is my time, damn it.

I also would like to point out that this little roll of masking tape's serviceability as an adhesive was not exactly of the highest standard, either. I placed this stuff – rolled up so that it's sticky on both sides – on no fewer than 27 toilets all around the state, and only landed "News of the Weird" stories in around four major newspapers. Four, Jared! How many grandmothers do I have to almost permanently attach to toilet seats before I start getting a little recognition in the mainstream media? And, as far as I knew from what I read, there was little to no scarring or need for skin grafting.

I blame you, Jared, you middle school dropout. I blame you and this uncaring, shoddy, un-American, filthy, badly located, understocked, pusillanimous, stinkily clienteled discount department store you've got going here.

Now give me my 49 cents back.

KingOblivionPhD@the-iss.com