There’s this machine in the school office. It laminates things.
I can report that as of this morning, I have laminated many things: two USGS geographical maps of the Copernicus and Kepler craters on the moon, a high resolution photo-poster of the surface of the sun, a cartoonish rocket ship, a drawing of a Mercury capsule, … Many things. Tomorrow I will return for more.
The USGS maps were the first ones, 11×17 prints I made from JPGs I downloaded from the Lunar and Planetary Institute. I fed them into the machine, pushing the leading edges against the drum. And I turned the crank.
The action of the crank was satisfying. It made a gear-ish sound, and the handle vibrated a bit. And with each little pop of the gear-ish machine, a drum turned and a little more of the prints emerged laminated from the other side. When the cranking was done, I cut them from the plastic with a small set of scissors.
During the day, I took five or six other teachers to the office to see this wondrous machine.
“Wondrous?” you might ask. “You don’t get out much, do you?” You might say.
But here’s the thing of it…
This machine doesn’t plug in. There is not ON-button. There is no touch screen to run it. It doesn’t jam. You don’t have to ask for help. It doesn’t have to heat up. It doesn’t have to cool down. And it doesn’t laminate bubbles onto your posters.
Oh my gosh, what a wondrous machine indeed.