Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Packaging Rant

I am sick of buying things and not being able to open them.

I can (sort of) understand it with OTC medicines, after the Tylenol Scare. Remember the Tylenol Scare? Somebody put poison in Tylenol bottles, and people got sick. I think some died. Hell, it has been so long ago that I don't even remember. But that's when it started.

And it spread. Some genius decided that, if a nut job wanted to poison people, almost all the packaging in the market was vulnerable, and, marketing to that fear, sold a lot of manufacturers on seals.

Some are for the purpose of preventing theft. Tiny electronic parts attached to large cards, and the whole wrapped in heavy-duty plastic that requires a chain saw to get into. I remember one of my kids once asking me why the butter box was sealed. I had to explain that people took the sticks of butter out and put them in the margarine boxes, so they got butter for the price of margarine.

I wish someone would explain to me why half & half needs a seal so stout that I have to stab through it with a knife. I came up with the knife trick after breaking fingernails several times, trying to get into the container before my coffee got cold.

The cheap house brand bottled water has a seal that will leave a mark. There have been times when I have seriously considered it possible that it is a conspiracy to get me to buy the expensive stuff. Those bottles open much more easily.

I didn't really notice this, until I no longer had Jim to hand things off to if I couldn't get into them.

Brendan is happy to open things for me, but what the hell am I going to do when he's gone? Buy a cow?

9 comments:

  1. Toys are some of the worst. It often takes me fifteen minutes, scissors and a knife to free a toy from it's packaging and IT MAKES ME INSANE.

    Not to mention the waste all the packaging creates.

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  2. Holy crap (sorry Ronni, my colorful language again).

    TOYS!!! What is with the steel enforced ties that need a BOLT cutter to get them out of the box? Seriously. Regular bag ties that used to suffice for plastic garbage bags would do the same exact thing.

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  3. Possibly because kids don't go shopping with bolt cutters?

    People are getting scared to buy something that's not all sealed up.

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  4. The thing that is ironic about the Tylenol thing is that it was never a part of the factory.

    It was ONE woman, who went to a few pharmacies. In order to get herself a defense of murder.

    And this ONE woman has changed the industry. My sister who has advanced arthritis, cannot have bottles that aren't child proof (or adult proof for that matter) because she has young children. Yet she needs her medicine obviously. So my brother in law has to open the bottle, and then they put the pills in bottles that she can handle.

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  5. You'll get us ALLLLLL ranting about getting into bottles and packages and all that. I saw a handy dandy little cutter on TV the other day that cuts right into those hard plastic things that are impossible to get into. Of course, I can't remember what it was called, so I have to wait for the commercial again!

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  6. Three words:

    Cutco Utility Shears.

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  7. OH don't get me started on this one! lol
    I have a terrible time opening things..
    I want one of those electric jar openers!
    you ever see those?

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  8. Cutco Utility Shears
    ````````````````````````

    Yes, but do they come in a blast proof package?

    I bought a pair of those handy dandy shears that will cut practically anything. It took quite a bit of swearing and a cut finger to get them out of the hard plastic molded package, though!

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