I Can’t Open The $%@# Thing!

Have you ever encountered a package or container, food or otherwise, that is a major struggle to open or unwrap? Well, if you live on planet Earth, this has happened to you.

Typical scenario: I am hungry, or needy or bleeding and my immediate future hinges on my ability to navigate through the package or container with a product that I want to eat or otherwise utilize. And I can't open the ___________thing!

This rant of mine has a basis in fact. Some emergency room docs have told us they see an increasing number of people who have injured themselves while attempting to circumnavigate corporate America's ( or corporate China's) scathingly brilliant packaging strategy to ensure their merchandise remains fresh or edible and saleable for the remainder of the millenium.

Personally, I find this situation particularly agregious when it comes to packaged food. Sure, I am proud to say I have mastered the electric can opener. But many, many other food products challenge you with their taunts of, "easy open" or "just zip and bing! There it is"! And this, while you are in a kitchen, in close proximity to a variety of big, sharp knives and other assorted cutting implements. E-R, here I come! "Mr. Cutter, how did you manage to slice open your hand like a small fish???" Well, doc, I was hungry and there was this package.....

And I know how this rolls for big biz. There is a person in the upper echelons with some kind of title, charged with the task of maintaining maximum shelf life for what is being produced while it sits in the warehouse or freezer waiting to become profit.

I have no problem with that. If I were that person, my life would be, "slap it and wrap it and sell it!"

And I know there are whole conventions out there dedicated to the packaging industry's never-ending quest for the container or package that will survive a nuclear attack. They are over there and we are over here, just trying to eat or use what we bought.

So here is my proposal. Let's call it a New Year's resolution for corporate America: The big boss, the head honcho, the man who evokes fear and trembling in the corporate hallways...resolve to take one or two of the company's product home a few times a year at random and see if you can open it at home without a PhD in package disassembly.

And Mister Big Guy, if you are frustrated or enraged or seriously injured trying to penetrate the package containing your own product, WELCOME TO OUR WORLD!"