The Industrial Laminator Saga That Sealed Nothing But Regret

By Tom Seest

At Sequatchie Crossing, we tell the stories of Sequatchie Crossing.

Please share this post with your friends, family, or business associates who may want follow the news from Sequatchie Crossing.

🎤 Audio Overview

“We’re a Lamination Town Now,” Said Nobody After All That Fuss

---

1. The Gospel of Gloss

It started with Chester Ray III, but of course it did.

He wasn’t a bad man. Just a shiny one. His passion for lamination was not a hobby. It was, in his words, a “ministry of permanence.”

“I seen time ruin too many good things,” Chester Ray told the Tuesday morning men’s breakfast at The Buttered Biscuit, unrolling a plastic-wrapped newspaper clipping from 1998 that read, “Local Man Collects Antique Gravy Boats.” That man was him.

He passed the article around reverently. “Still reads fresh.”

Boot Barnes blinked at it. “Yeah, but did it need to?”

Pastor Peeler took a thoughtful bite of scrambled egg. “There’s something to be said for the crisp edges of salvation.”

Chester Ray smiled like a man with a calling.

---

2. The Print Shop Proposal

Brett, co-owner of Ink Me Twice, was just trying to make small talk.

“We might get an industrial laminator,” he said casually while laminating one of Alyssa’s “Live, Laugh, Latch Hook” flyers for the eighth time. “Got a vendor coming by next week with a floor model. Be nice to do some bigger jobs, ya know?”

He meant “restaurant menus,” “school signage,” and “one-off PTA panic projects.”

But Chester Ray heard prophecy.

He stood in the middle of the shop, clutching a roll of certificate-grade pouches, and whispered, “The covenant has arrived.”

---

3. The Promise Forms

The next day, Brett printed a simple interest form titled:

“Would You Use an Industrial Laminator?”
Please list your intended uses. (Be specific.)

He meant to gauge interest.

He did not expect forty-seven responses in twenty-four hours. Nor the town’s equivalent of a Kickstarter campaign—full of handwritten pledges, post-it declarations, and one notarized letter.

Highlights included:

• Mabel Dean Ashcroft, who wished to “eternalize” the Fellowship Hall Potluck Guidelines, including the rule about “No Unidentified Crocks.”

• Clovis Strickland, who diagrammed a multi-phase “Zoning Complaint Preservation Initiative” using what appeared to be Cold War clip-art and a reference to “future tribunals.”

• Boot Barnes, who submitted a fully laminated blank form. When questioned, he shrugged: “Seemed like the thing to do.”

• Alyssa, who proposed “a motivational quote wall that can survive coffee spills and moral ambiguity.”

• Reverend Peeler, who solemnly requested laminated sermon bulletins “in case of baptismal splash.”

Even Evelyn scribbled in pink gel pen: “Laminated hopes. Lamination as hope. Call me.”

Terrance the Goat was added to the list without his consent.

---

4. The Arrival Ceremony

Two weeks later, the laminator arrived strapped to a wooden pallet, covered in warning labels and a banner that read:

CAUTION: HOT ENOUGH TO PRESERVE DREAMS.

It was glorious. Six feet wide. Buttons that blinked like a spaceship. Four temperature settings, including one ominously marked “FOREVER.”

Brett hosted a ribbon-cutting with complimentary iced tea and a raffle. First prize: ten free laminations. Second prize: a poem about lamination written by Chester Ray and printed on—what else?—laminated vellum.

The mayor showed up long enough to ask, “Is this budgeted?” and left before the answer.

Boot performed a dramatic reading of his new spoken word piece:

“Plastic on the Wind: A Small Town’s Plea for Durability.”

People clapped. Someone wept.

---

5. The Golden Week

For one shining week, the town laminated with gusto.

• Pastor Peeler laminated the hymn schedule.

• Alyssa laminated her résumé and taped it to the back window of her Prius.

• Clovis laminated a map of the town’s power grid with sections labeled “known anomalies.”

• Brett laminated a cinnamon roll “just to see what happens.” (It shrunk and turned orange. Boot called it “conceptual food.”)

• Evelyn laminated a coupon for essential oils, handed it to Chester Ray, and winked.

Even the Sheriff laminated his “No Soliciting Unless You Have Pie” sign.

And then—quiet.

---

6. The Cold Pouch Silence

By the end of the second week, the laminator sat untouched.

It hummed softly to itself in the corner like a forgotten robot priest. Brett kept it on out of guilt, occasionally sliding through a copy of The Sequatchie Sentinel just so it wouldn’t feel abandoned.

Chester Ray visited daily. But instead of projects, he stood by the machine in silence, occasionally caressing its feeder tray like a man recalling a lost romance.

Boot asked Evelyn, “What happened to all that lamination fervor?”

She paused, adjusted her sunglasses, and said, “It turns out not everything benefits from being sealed in plastic. Some things need to wrinkle.”

---

7. The Blame Phase

Then came the finger-pointing.

At the next Fellowship Hall meeting, Mabel Dean stood and said, “Some of y’all made big promises. You said you’d use the laminator. You looked Brett in the eyes. And now that fine piece of equipment sits there, unused and unloved, like a nativity donkey after Epiphany.”

Clovis replied, “I was waiting for Phase II of my preservation project. Phase I required toner refills and council approval. Which I have not yet received due to interference.” (He gestured broadly toward no one.)

Pastor Peeler offered a theological reflection on “the dangers of idolizing technology,” citing the Tower of Babel and “probably that laminator too.”

Brett, exhausted, said, “I just wanted to do menus.”

---

8. The Final Attempt

In a last-ditch effort to resuscitate community enthusiasm, Alyssa launched a campaign:

#LaminatorChallenge

She dared people to laminate “something meaningful.” She made a TikTok of herself laminating a fallen leaf with the caption:

“Preserving autumn before it ghosts us.”

Boot laminated a single teardrop (via clever trick photography).
Mabel Dean laminated her 1984 casserole competition ribbon.
Even Clovis laminated a copy of the city charter, labeled “Draft Only—Do Not Ratify.”

Still… it fizzled. The hashtag got one share (from Brett’s mom). The leaf curled. The charter melted slightly.

---

9. The Reckoning

By week four, the laminator was unplugged.

It now served as a makeshift cider table, covered in a gingham cloth and partially obscured by a stack of church bulletins that were, ironically, not laminated.

Chester Ray stopped showing up.

When asked about it at the Buttered Biscuit, he simply said, “The town wasn’t ready. Permanence is a burden, too. Sometimes people prefer their lives… erasable.”

Boot nodded, chewing toast.

“Also,” Chester Ray added, “y’all are real flaky.”

---

10. The Resolution

One Tuesday morning, Evelyn walked into Ink Me Twice carrying a sheet of pink cardstock.

It read, in curly script:

“We Tried.”

She placed it gently on the laminator. Brett blinked. “You want this laminated?”

“No,” she said. “Just displayed.”

Boot arrived ten minutes later and laminated it anyway.

It was hung above the machine like a plaque in a museum dedicated to good intentions.

Terrance the Goat later tried to eat it, but spit it out.

Too chewy.

---

Moral of the Story

Sequatchie Crossing is a town of visionaries, yes. But visionaries with the attention span of a porch cat in August.

They meant well. They dreamed boldly. And when those dreams didn’t quite stick?

Well, at least they could be wiped clean and reused.

---

⚠️ Disclaimer

The events described herein are mostly true, or at least laminated versions of the truth. Any resemblance to real-life overinvestments in equipment nobody ends up using is entirely coincidental but statistically likely. No goats were harmed in the making of this story, though one did exhibit indigestion after nibbling a pledge sheet.

Please consult a licensed technician before operating high-temperature nostalgia preservation devices. And remember: if you love something, set it free. If it returns, laminate it.