Glue Tubes Suck

OK, so here is what I discovered is a pet peeve of mine, and that irked me so much I had to go all bloggy about it:

Glue Tubes Suck!

I can’t be the only one who has encountered this problem. You buy a tube of expensive glue and use it for a special project. You put it away when you’re finished, to use at a later date. But when said later date arrives and you try to use the tube of expensive glue, you can’t, because it’s clogged. WTH?!

The offending glue tube in my case is E-6000.

This stuff is billed as “industrial strength adhesive;” it’s also something that many crafters use because it is supposed to work so darn well…which is why I bought it. At $4 for a tube. This is despite the fact that it states clearly on the package that it contains chemicals that are known to cause cancer in the state of California. Well, hey, lucky me, I don’t live in California! So I should be safe enough, no?

Ahem.

And yeah, it is a good, strong glue. Looks all pretty in the package, too does it not? The marketing team has done an excellent job on its packaging too. We know that it’s Flexible, Waterproof, Non-flammable, and Photo Safe, and all of these things are very important to wanton craft addicts like myself. But what it should also say on the tube is this:

Will clog after first use, rendering the tube unusable,
and the consumer pissed off and $4 poorer!

And then it should also have a picture of how the tube will look after you’ve spent half an hour trying to unclog it, causing it to become all wrinkly and misshapen, and so cracked at the sides that the glue begins to ooze out of it all over your hands and your craft project, so that you have to wrap it with masking tape to get it to stop.

And don’tcha find it funny how the top of the tube says, Amazing?! Yeah, it’s amazing, all right. Amazing that I spent $4 on it. Amazing that it clogged after the first use. Amazing that I actually devoted a half an hour of my life trying to get it unclogged. Amazing that wrapping it with lightweight masking tape actually stopped this industrial strength, cancer-causing-to-Californians adhesive from oozing completely out of the tube and creating a sticky puddle on my work space. And equally amazing that I just spent another half an hour of my life creating this blog post about it.

Yep. That’s pretty amazing.