I had another in a series of aggravating experiences yesterday. 'Series' is probably not the correct word, since I've been having this same bad experience, with increasing frequency for the past several years. Now, you might imagine that I was about to describe having a tooth filled, or being a pall bearer at a funeral and dropping the casket, or having the new assistant at the doctor's office dig around repeatedly for 10 minutes looking for a vein from which to draw blood. But I'm not.
No, the aggravating experience I've been having has been in just trying to open things that I buy. That's it. Just trying to open things. Used to be, you bought a bag of chips, grabbed the top of the bag on either side and pulled and whammo! the top seam opened and it was crunch time. Buy a record album, quick run along the open side of the jacket to split the plastic, pull the rest of the plastic off and it's off to happy tunes land.
Nowadays, you grab a bag of chips at the top and pull it apart and the whole bag rips in every which direction and chips are everywhere except where you'd like to eat them! CDs, forget about it! Even if you do manage to get the plastic wrap to split and peel, they could make a lunar orbiter out of this stuff, trying to remove all of the anti theft stickers (disguised with the title of the CD to make you think that it's there for a good reason) is nigh on impossible.
Do products that we buy everyday really need to be wrapped this securely? Is there some conspiracy among manufacturers to simply not allow me to access and enjoy the product I've spent my hard earned dollars on? What about the molded, hard plastic on cardboard stuff that electrical accessories come in? You know, there's a lot of it in any typical Radio Shack. Mon Dieu!!! The cardboard won't peel away and the plastic is like steel!
And then there's overpackaging. You know what I mean. You buy an mp3 player the size of an iPod (or an iPod for that matter) and the box is literally 10 times the size of the device it holds. And inserts containing warnings in 56 languages and 47 chinese dialects. I mean, come on, it's a friggin' mp3 player, right? It's not radioactive material off to some weapons lab or biological waste from an Army germ warfare lab!
Anyway, I really don't understand what's behind this phenomenon. Maybe it's an issue with the machining that makes the packaging materials. Or the machinary used to actually package the goods. I just wish I could open my vitamins without spilling them all when trying to remove the 'safety shield' under the lid!
No, the aggravating experience I've been having has been in just trying to open things that I buy. That's it. Just trying to open things. Used to be, you bought a bag of chips, grabbed the top of the bag on either side and pulled and whammo! the top seam opened and it was crunch time. Buy a record album, quick run along the open side of the jacket to split the plastic, pull the rest of the plastic off and it's off to happy tunes land.
Nowadays, you grab a bag of chips at the top and pull it apart and the whole bag rips in every which direction and chips are everywhere except where you'd like to eat them! CDs, forget about it! Even if you do manage to get the plastic wrap to split and peel, they could make a lunar orbiter out of this stuff, trying to remove all of the anti theft stickers (disguised with the title of the CD to make you think that it's there for a good reason) is nigh on impossible.
Do products that we buy everyday really need to be wrapped this securely? Is there some conspiracy among manufacturers to simply not allow me to access and enjoy the product I've spent my hard earned dollars on? What about the molded, hard plastic on cardboard stuff that electrical accessories come in? You know, there's a lot of it in any typical Radio Shack. Mon Dieu!!! The cardboard won't peel away and the plastic is like steel!
And then there's overpackaging. You know what I mean. You buy an mp3 player the size of an iPod (or an iPod for that matter) and the box is literally 10 times the size of the device it holds. And inserts containing warnings in 56 languages and 47 chinese dialects. I mean, come on, it's a friggin' mp3 player, right? It's not radioactive material off to some weapons lab or biological waste from an Army germ warfare lab!
Anyway, I really don't understand what's behind this phenomenon. Maybe it's an issue with the machining that makes the packaging materials. Or the machinary used to actually package the goods. I just wish I could open my vitamins without spilling them all when trying to remove the 'safety shield' under the lid!
Comments