Mastering the art of putting plastic on your windows (I know- who has to even do that anymore?! ...me.)

1. Purchase the cheapest box of window sealer-upper plastic business you can find, because you're already angry that your windows are original (I'm sorry, authentic), 103 year old character-filled windows and you have to pay for heat and you don't want to pay any more than you have to. (Check Home Depot...in the aisle you wouldn't logically think to look the first 3 times).
2. Bring said box home and immediately realize that you don't have as much plastic business leftover from last fall/winter/spring (ok, non-summer) as you thought.
3. Return to Home Depot to purchase more plastic business, still not finding the correct aisle on the first try because in the time that you have gone home and returned, they've changed the location to an end-aisle display next to the air-conditioning units (?!).
4. At home, now adequately equipped with plastic window kits, begin cleaning the surface around the window to which you will stick the tape and plastic (because you learned that the hard way last time, even though it's true that cleaning crumbling wood can only go so far...but hey, we do our best).
5. Stick tape to outline of window.
6. Press down so the tape really really sticks.
7. Press down again.
8. Now do it again.
9. Ok, now you're ready. Remove the backing from the tape on the top of the window.
10. Place the plastic where you want it to go and start pressing down, fully prepared for it to go not at all where you want it to go and to get all bunched up despite your most careful preparations.
11. Repeat previous step with sides and bottom of window.
12. Get out your hairdryer and start the shrink-by-heat process, starting in the middle of the window.
13. Reach the edges of the window and watch in utter horror as the plastic, shrunk too much in the middle and now without give around the sides, pulls the tape right off your windows.
14. Curse the windows and remember that you have to start with the edges (where the tape is) when initiating the shrink-by-heat process.
    
15. Patch up window #1 with packing tape and move on to the next window, remembering to start with the edges when hair-dryer-ing it.
    
16. Reach the end of the process with window #2, only to once again, watch in horror as the plastic pulls away, seemingly inexplicably, from the window.
17. Curse the bottom of the window and remember that you have to put two layers of tape on the bottom, just because that's the way it's gotta be. Not that they tell you this in the directions, but you remember doing it last time.
    
18. Patch up window #2 with packing tape (it's an attractive decorating theme) and move on to the next window, remembering to start with the edges and to double up on the tape for the bottom layer.
19. Curse and patch up an entire room full of windows only to remember that you have to press down on the edges where the plastic meets the tape immediately after hair-dryer-ing each section, thus ensuring the desired, long-term stickage.
20. Finally, in a room that does not matter aesthetically because it is your bedroom and guests will not see it nor admire its lack of packing tape decor, complete your first error-free, completely sealed window.
21. Repeat for entire room full of windows.
    

Happy Plastic Season.