BEFORE you can start on a craft project, wrap a large gift, or seal up a box for shipping, you have to do the hard part: finding the end of your packing tape.
One woman revealed that there's an easier way out of the sticky situation, and it doesn't require any additional tools.
When Kirsten Morley shared her discovery on TikTok, she might not have expected her video to go viral.
But 786k views later, Morley can rest assured she's not the only person who recently learned the easy trick.
Holding a fresh roll of packing tape, Morley spoke directly to the camera, with one finger against the red dispenser.
"I was today years old when I discovered you can use the back of this to find the tape," Morley said.
Pressing down on the curved part of the plastic shell, Morley spun the roll of tape on the spindle.
When the "tongue" of the plastic dispenser reached the end of the tape, it caught against it – and the tape popped right up.
Morley lifted the edge of the tape with ease, peeling it back and exposing a long, tear-free strand.
Viewers were floored by the revelation. Several people admitted they'd never guessed that was the purpose of the plastic apparatus.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhh that’s what that is for?" commented one baffled person.
Another lamented the time they'd spent without the hack. "I’ve wasted YEARS!" they cried.
"I can't believe that! I send boxes out all the time and never knew that," wrote someone else, surprised they hadn't discovered the hack on their own.
"Knowing this years ago would have saved me so much frustration," a different viewer agreed.
Several people thanked Morley for sharing her hard-won knowledge.
"You literally just changed my entire life," a woman wrote. "I will never get the hours back I’ve spent trying to find the tape, but now the future is bright!"
Others couldn't figure out how they'd gone so long without knowing the secret. Some blamed their teachers.
"Why isn’t there a class in high school for all these important life hacks?" a viewer asked.
A different commenter jokingly wrote "Cancel the Pythagorean Theorem!" in response.
There was also a subset of stubborn commenters who pretended to have ignored the easy solution on purpose.
"I knew…I just like doing it the hard way," one insisted.
To assuage their embarrassment, Morley herself responded, with lots of good-natured laughing emojis. "I would say the same thing!" she agreed.
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