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Pull into my driveway and one of the first things you’ll see is the array of blue tarps draped haphazardly over my woodpile. For several years I’ve promised my wife that I’m going to build a woodshed, and if I really want to establish my credentials as an Alaska Man I’ll get right to work on that project, finish a good two-thirds of it, then put the blue tarps back up and forget about the whole thing.

I’d like to claim my reason for not getting this job done is that one of the applicable covenants in my Goldstream neighborhood prohibits the completion of building projects. But really, I’m just too lazy to get around to it (laziness being another credential of the true Alaska Man).

Ron Judd, a columnist and outsdoors writer based out of Bellingham, Wash., would understand my predicament. “Got a problem too big to handle, too expensive to fix, too embarrassing to be seen?” he asks his readers, “Tarp it over baby. You can come back to it a few years from now, when your mind is fresh. The Big Blue Tarp is a societal Post-it note with a message in big block letters: ‘Yeah, I know. I’ll get back to this mess later.’”

“The Blue Tarp Bible” is Judd’s “heartfelt paean to the grommet-cornered piece of petroleum product nearest to our hearts.” It’s an ode to one of the ugliest things ever foisted on America: that seemingly self-replicating piece of cheap artificial fiber without which few of us seem able to properly function.

The blue tarp, or the Big Blue Tarp (BBT) as Judd insists on calling it, is certainly one of the most ubiquitous items on the Alaska landscape. Ours is one of three states, according to Judd, where it is widely seen as the default state flag (I’ve long assumed this, although I’d add that we could replicate our official flag by sticking duct tape stars to a blue tarp, thereby properly honoring the two most important elements of our semi-urban subsistence lifestyle).

Judd’s book is primarily a practical application manual. He has generously offered up 40 separate uses for blue tarps, some of which you probably never considered.

For instance, if you suffer from the same problem I do — blue tarp abundance — consider Tarp Application No. 4: “Cover for a pile of blue tarps.” Judd suggests that this “might seem incestuous in a polyethylene-coated fabric sort of way,” but “one blue tarp out in plain sight beats several dozen others in a pile any day of the week.”

(This may seem a nifty solution to your proliferating tarp problem, but as a husband, I can assure all you married men out there that your wives will never fall for it. If you’re a single guy in a cabin however, start building Mount Tarpmore; that’s why you moved to Alaska in the first place.)

Another use is for dogs that have had surgery and need to be prevented from licking themselves. You could shackle them in one of those plastic cones, but Judd notes that this is embarrassing for both dog and owner, and suggests instead that you wrap Fido in a blue tarp dog sheath. He has handily included instructions and a diagram to get you started.

If landscaping is an issue around your homestead, consider slinging a blue tarp down a slope in you backyard, adding boulders, and passing it off as a faux waterfall. This can also double as a weed killer, as well as a poor man’s Slip ‘n’ Slide)

If interior decor is more your thing, remember that tarps make for perfect redneck drapes with a redneck matching area rug. Or, if you’re really desperate, just install wall-to-wall tarpeting.

Car owners know that tarps are great for covering that dead automobile you plan on fixing some year. They also make ideal liners for truck-bed liners, as well truck load covers that, once you’ve hit freeway speed, will start coming loose and soon be billowing “behind you like a flailing spinnaker on a sailing sloop.”

Other blue tarp applications include kayak sheathing, blue-collar toboggans, mood skylights, and of course, body bags. The only limits are your imagination and the dimensions of your tarp.

Sprinkled throughout this book are numerous “Tarps in the news” items. We learn that during Hurricane Rita, NASA officials used blue tarps to protect space shuttle tanks stored at the New Orleans-based Michoud Assembly Facility.

There’s plenty of tarp trivia as well. Tarps made in the United States tend to be thicker and heavier than those manufactured in China (the same can be said for the people turned out by those two nations). And if you’re out tarp shopping, be aware that the difference between a FEMA-approved tarp and an off-the-counter one is this: “The FEMA blue tarp is large, blue, has grommets, and costs $1,250. The everyman’s blue tarp is large, blue, has grommets, and costs $3.49.”

“The Blue Tarp Bible” is a consistently entertaining book. Judd recognizes the difference between poor taste (which is generally funny) and raunchiness (which generally isn’t), and stays just this side of the edge with his quirky examination of this “cultural icon, a glaring symbol of our frailty, our indifference, and the side of our nature that veers closest to tackiness.”