Thursday, October 13, 2011
Cover It Up
I have to admit that it wasn’t until I moved out to the Everglades so many years ago that I ever had a need for tarps. And when I did have a need for a tarp, I was very reluctant to get one. Even though I lived through hurricanes and saw these tarps being used on roofs, windows, boats, cars, etc, I never thought I actually needed one.
I was wrong.
I got my first bbq grill when I moved to the Glades and I made a little area just for it, had everything all neat and orderly and bbqed like a fiend the first month I had it. I figured because it was a bbq, it was meant to be outside and therefore it did not need to have a cover. I actually thought I was so smart for NOT getting a tarp to go over it. After awhile though, I realized that tarps were not a waste of money or unnecessary for me, they were actually very important if I wanted my stuff to remain in good shape. The legs and anything else that was aluminum on that grill rusted in short order and basically looked like garbage in my yard. I eventually threw the grill away because even though it could still be used and worked just fine, I couldn’t get rid of or get over how horrible it looked after all that time, unprotected, in the weather.
I decided I did not want the same fate to befall my 7 cu ft chest freezer that I bought to hold my pets’ food. I had to put it outside because when I lived in Miami, I had no room inside my house unless I wanted it right in the center of the living room. It sat outside for almost an entire year but it was one of the big items that I packed up to take with me when I moved. See, after sitting outside through unrelenting sun, torrential downpours and thunderstorms, my chest freezer still looks brand new because I took one simple step. I covered it with a poly tarp and wrapped a bunji cord to it. You would never know that this freezer had been outside for even 5 minutes that is how good the poly tarp protected it.
If you have a bike, a generator, a bbq grill, a boat, or you live in earthquake, hurricane or tornado country, you really need to invest in poly tarps. They protect everything so well because they are waterproof, they protect from the harmful rays of the sun and they keep the leaves and twigs and whatever else may fall, away from your stuff. There’s a tarp for just about anything you can think of and they WILL protect what is underneath.
I am forever sold on the idea and usefulness of poly tarps as I look at my gleaming white and clean chest freezer and will never go without one again.
