Some parents don’t parent. Instead, they let little Bobby and Suzy play in the toy department while they go on to Automotive or Women’s Accessories, or they drop the kids off at a toy store to amuse themselves (AND expect the toy store employees to watch the rug rats, keep them safe, and not let them leave the store) while the parents go do grown up shopping. Suzy and Bobby see the toys, they want to play with the toys, the toys are firmly locked down, so the pwecious widdle angels try to remove the accessories.
I’ve never worked in a toy store, but I have worked in retail, and I’ve shopped in toy stores and seen the above behavior.
Actually, my theory is marketing and computer-aided design. Back when I was a kid, accessories came in one plastic bag. You couldn’t see all the accessories from looking at the package unless it was on the picture of the box. Now that computers can design the packaging and you can actually SEE all the accessories in the molded plastic clamshell containers or clear plastic protectors, they need a way to hold it all in place as if it’s in a picture. For example, we got this Polly Pocket loft apartment thing this year. It has all the accessories on display and Polly herself in an actual pose as if in the apartment. That’s a marketing thing to show how cool it would look in use. And the computer design for packaging allows them to package the toy as if it were in use.
Well, that’s my theory.
Tell me about it. I must have opened 600,000 thousand toys yesterday and all of them were packaged like they were going to be shot to the moon and back. Infant toys are the worst. We bought my 8 month old a bunch of light up rattles that all came in that lethally sharp plastic clamshell packaging. My husband and I have hurt fingers but happy kids.
Next year, online shopping. I didn’t know Amazon did that.
Yup, I’m a fan of that. I got my sister some earbuds for her Zune via Amazon, and it came in that packaging. Cardboard box, big sticker to hold it closed, little plastic baggies inside. Easy-peasy.
I dunno about swearing (well, actually, I do. I do a lot of it opening toys.), but this came close to being the Year Mommy Had to Be Rushed to the Hospital With a Deep Stab Wound. Good times, good times.
You gotta smoke them toys out of their dang plastic caves. I ain’t never seen a packaging held up more’n 5 seconds against a simple Bic lighter.
Of course, you have to be careful not to charcoal whatever it is that you’re trying to melt from the clamshell (a.k.a. Satan’s buttcheeks) or ultratight CDcase plastic (a.k.a. Satan’s condom), but once the packaging has got at least one fingersize hole in it, you can Neanderthal your way to the prize. Or Stone Age your way through it, if you’re one of those sissy sharp tool users.
And if you were to melt or stab right through dear Uncle Joe’s wonderful Xtra Amplified Electronic Drumkit 9000 (ultra long life batteries included), well… who’s to say it weren’t no accident, eh ?
One of my daughter’s toys this year was wired in in no fewer than nine fucking goddamn cockstacking fuck’s sake places. I hasten to add that the goddamned dicksuck fuckface thing retailed for maybe twenty fucking assfuck dollars. I bet half that money went to the wire company.
This year an added bit of fun was that instead of just wiring it in and twisting the wire together, they’d wire it in with two wires, and then the wires were twisted in pairs, and then the pairs were twisted together in the direction opposite the twist of the pairs, rendering the motherfucking cockblasting cuntwheeling fucking things impossible to untwist by any living human unless said human had eight fingers on each hand and the capacity to think in five fucking dimensions, for fuck’s sake.
Y’know, I dislike frivolous lawsuits as much as the next guy, but this is one case where a painful settlement to a consumer who was injured by military-grade packaging might actually help. Manufacturers would then conclude that it’s cheaper to have sane packaging and retailers complaining to them about shoplifting rather than pay out a few mil to tort lawyers every couple of years.
Or, another way to open those stupid plastic packages, and one that most people will already have around the house: a standard, hand-held, manually cranked can opener. Works like a charm.
Package Shark is a lightweight. Get one of these. It has big clippers for cutting through packaging and wire ties, offset to make it easy to snip around the edge. The handle also has a boxcutter-type utility blade for general cutting, and a mini screwdriver for opening battery compartments.
This thing is seriously awesome. They sell 'em for about ten bucks at Bed Bath & Beyond, and probably Walgreens and such as well.
There was something on NPR (or some other public radio show) last week about this packaging, and that’s what they said: it was designed to entice children, so they could see the toy in all its glory and sometimes operate the toy within the packaging. I love the idea of frustration-free packaging, however, and will definitely keep an eye out for that when my little sprout becomes old enough to pine after toys more complicated than a cardboard box.
