Ever since the Tylenol scare a few decades ago, there has been a whole new breed of safer consumer packaging, but this is getting ridiculous.
I was trying to open a simple, individually wrapped packet of graham crackers and needed an entire garage full of tools and two Teamsters to pry open that synthetic wrap…what is it made of, woven nano tubes? You can’t tear the stuff, and you can’t use your teeth to rip it open.
If there is ever a bio disaster in the neigborhood, just wrap me up in that crap and send me out to get help.
Seriously, if I can’t open those damn packets, what does an elderly person or someone with a disability do?
I practically have to use scissors to open everything wrapped like that these days. Even those pepperidge farm cookies are inposible to open without demolishing the packaging in the process.
I despise most of the “tamper resistant” packaging. I always say “what are they afraid of, someone *actually * eating these (fill in food item here)???”
I bought a portable CD player while we were on vacation between Christmas and New Year’s.
Our motel room had a kitchenette, and I sawed at the packaging with the one sharp knife in the kitchen drawer for a few minutes, until I pictured myself cutting off my finger while far from home.
I ended up going down to the front desk at 10:00 pm and using their scissors to get the damn thing open. It was still no easy task. The edges had been hermetically sealed.
Well I do remove the socks from the bag one pair at a time as necesary, but I sure as hell don’t re-seal the bag.
Why does some sandwich packaging need a fireman’s pneumatic power-cutter to open?
Why does fresh bread packaging disintegrate once breached? (rendering it useless for keeping the bread in)
Why are m&m packets designed to explode? (because that’s what happens when the force of opening them eventually exceeds the strength og the bag)
Why oh FUCKING why do 2litre drink bottles have a little BASTARD of a sharp bit on the rim that rips your hand to shreds when you twist the lid?
Because the world is stupid and crap that’s why!
(my exact post from ‘Inexplicable Packaging’. Seems to fit here too.)
I have a set of jeweler’s wirecutters, little eensy bolt-cutter thingy. I use it for my hobby work.
It comes in handy not only for that, but for removing various items from their packaging. I have a sincere problem with medicine in particular. What is this “peel backing away from foil, then push product through foil” crap?
Medicine, by definition, is intended to be used by SICK PEOPLE, is it not? People who are a bit under the weather? People not really running on all eight cylinders? Is it, then, a reasonable idea to make the medicine harder to access than Area 51?
Now, tamper-evident packaging, I have no problem with. I’ll take one look at tampered packaging, and think, “Hey, someone’s been into the Tylenol, here. Plainly, I should be wary.” I’m not terribly concerned with them what don’t. Natural selection in action, I think.
…but making the medicine harder to get into than Fort Knox is not a solution. Mostly it makes me work harder to remember the particular brand, so I can make a point of never buying THAT brand again…
Last time I went through a situation like this was with a cookies package, it said “pull the easy-open string” or some such thing; except that seems Bob forgot to add the easy-open string back there in the factory. I tried to open the package from the ends folds; I pulled with my avid fingernails in vain; each time I managed to grab a bit of the envolope it separated a couple milimeters and then teared off completly. I think I spent 20 minutes fighting with the darn thing, and all the way I could hear the cookies inside the tight package being slowly grinded down to their primal floor.
Absolutely. Someone needs to tell all dog food companies that their little one-inch string isn’t strong enough to tear through the thick bag. Not when I can’t even get a good grip on it.
And dog treats… the ones I buy actually don’t have a way to open them without scissors. They are completely sealed.
The pointy end of the bottle-opener gets used for package-opening and nothing else in our household. That takes care of plastic wrappings on food packages, for the most part. Doesn’t solve the problem of what to do when the only container (like bread, pretzel bag etc.) takes its newly-opened status as a hint that it’s time to split down its entire length.
Non-food stuff is MUCH harder - like the CD package someone else mentioned. If you do have scissors handy, they do break through the plastic. Leaving nice sharp edges that snap back into place, so that when you reach for the product inside, your hand gets gouged. I’ve had them draw blood on quite a few occasions.
I think the worst offenders are toys. A typical Barbie, say (yes, I have a daughter of Barbie-loving age) has at least a dozen write fasteners. The things that aren’t wired into place are often sewn to the package. With flimsy thread, true, but still. It should NOT take nearly an HOUR to get a toy out of a box while an excited child is dancing around and whining for the toy.
What’s up with those damn inkjet cartridge packaging? It takes a tool the likes of which no man has seen to open the outer plastic shell. Once the outer shell is breached, it becomes an object sharp enough to slice and dice human hands. Then, there’s about a pound and a half of cardboard to sift through to find the cartridge. While I understand “theft prevention”, that’s just plain ridiculous. I would venture to guess that the packaging costs more than the product itself.
(1) Packaging: The art of keeping the product away from the consumer.
(2) Someone once observed that eggs are shipped in the flimsiest cardboard that modern technology can devise, but cold chisels are shipped in a plastic bubble that needs a blowtorch to open.
(3) We used to purchase cattle feed in 100 lb bags. Once upon a time, these bags were burlap, but eventually they switches to woven plastic. The bags were sew shut with a chain-link stitch that, if you pulled from the correct end, would open up like magic. Of course, you almost never pulled from the correct end (the ends weren’t labeled), and invariably you would have to rip the think open with your jackknife. But, when it worked, it was the neatest thing…
Nobody’s mentioned the wrapping on VHS tapes yet? Even worse is the way the tapes sometimes get permanently stuck inside the box, which you need to destroy to get the tape cassette free.
Awhile back, I had cut my hand and while I managed to do the antibiodic cream lid and Band-Aids that stick to everything but where they’re supposed to stick dance, I wanted some Tylenol. I’m standing in the bathroom, bandaged hand, attempting to invent new curse words as I wrestle with the child proof cap. As an act of contortion, I one handedly wedge the cap against the towell on the side of the cabinet and twist the bottle. In a scene from I Love Lucy, the cap gives, bottle slips and 20+ Tylenol caplets fly over the expanse of my bathroom floor.
Desperation is a decision of how much pain is equal to the idea of a Tylenol caplet you picked up from besides your toilet.