(dc) keep feelin' fascination

so i have this fascination with peeling. my mom says i've been this way since i came of peeling age. i would peel everything that could be peeled if it sported any imperfection from which to start. paint, plastic coatings, sunburned skin, paper labels, window tinting. it's just so satisfying. especially plastic. there must be some kind of weird psychological reason for the satisfaction i find in it.

ripping along lines of weakness is a close second to peeling. like the back of the front studebaker seat when we were little. there it was. everytime i got in the car. the little dog-eared rip in the vinyl, just taunting me, BEGGING me to pull on it. how could i possibly resist? i DID resist, many many many days. but sometimes i gave in. how could i not? i'm sure my sisters can think of other things i gleefully destroyed.

one positive use of this impulse was to rip out all of the stiff paper ads along their perforations (oh, did i LOVE perforations) inside reader's digest. a new issue would arrive, and i would (literally) tear through the magazine looking for anything i could fold and remove. at doctor's offices (which i was in alot, it seemed), instead of playing with the dolls, i would rummage through all the magazines, looking for perforations.

just to be clear, there's no satisfaction in ripping or peeling, per se. an ugly jagged rip has no merit. it's only when it's ASKING to be ripped or peeled - when it rips or peels readily and easily and cleanly. then it's like you're beating entropy to the punch. or something.