Friday, September 12, 2008
I don't know whether it's that my hands are getting weaker, or packaging is getting stronger, but I'm having increasing difficulty opening wrappings and bags.
When I'm driving some distance, I often buy a bag of trail mix or peanut butter crackers to nibble on the way. These days, I have to have someone in the store open it for me. If I'm on the road already, I have to pull over and stop, and dig the knife or folding scissors out of the bottom of my purse to cut the bag open.
I bought a little bag of coffee candies, and had the clerk open it for me. What I didn't realize is that the individual candies were wrapped. Not so long ago, there'd be a little cut in the end of the wrapper that made it easy to tear. Or you could pull the lengthwise seam overlap and it would cause the end to open. Not any more. I about went crazy trying to chew those candies open.
On the trip to Minneapolis, we were given little bags of munchies on the plane. Nobody could get them open, and of course no one had a real metal knife or scissors.
Potato chip bags require scissors. If you manage to get a candy bar open by hand, it might be at the cost of the candy flipping out onto the floor. Those cardboard and plastic hanging thingies that toys and small hardware and cosmetic dohickies come in drive me crazy. Scissors don't work because of the odd shape. They're so tough utility knives are dangerous - the plastic just gives and bends when you saw at it. Mostly I get them open by picking at the cardboard on the back.
A lot of pills come in foil and plastic blister packs, with perforations between the individual doses. If they're just foil on the back, it's easy to push a pill through. But now they're adding a tough paper backing over the foil that you have to peel off first. I've been having fits getting that paper backing off. My Prilosec has a spot on the corner of each pill cache that isn't glued down, where you're supposed to start peeling, but you have to separate the pills on the perforations to get to the loose corners. A few weeks ago I noticed that suddenly the perforations don't work. I can't tear on the perforated part. I try mightily, and more often than not it tears randomly, which indicates to me that it's not weakness on my part.
I buy a lot of drinks in bottles that have the plastic safety wrapper around the cap. They used to have a perforated part, a "zipper", that made it easy to get the plastic off. Half the bottles I've bought lately don't have the perforations, or the perforations don't go all the way to the edge. That plastic is impossible to tear by hand. It just stretches, but not enough to slip it off. I've been reduced to chewing the cap off a bottle of iced coffee.
Is it just me? Has anyone else noticed it?
.
4 comments:
Hmmm. Just had a thought. Are scissors manufacturers behind this? Or dentists?
It was the bane of Mom's existence.
I despise with a passion the plastic covering that gets sucked over everything these days. I bought a package of those 'energy efficient' light bulbs that were in that heavy plastic and I had to use a box cutter to get it open. It was scary.
But even for things like granola bars, I keep scissors scattered throughout the house, my cubicle and should probably put a little pair in my car.
I hate shoplifters and product tamperers. For punishment, they should be triple wrapped in product safety seals and strapped down with that wiring.
Post a Comment