It’s Hard to Open

A highly informal poll shows that most folks have a terrible time opening the plastic packages that hold most consumer products these days. What touched off the inquiry was the purchase of a small computer gadget called a “flash drive” at RadioShack. It came nestled between two sheets of heavy molded plastic. They looked as if they could be pulled apart. No such luck. There was no way for the fingers to get a grip.

A small pocketknife did no better. Back at the store, a clerk pulled out a hefty pocketknife, but it wouldn’t penetrate the plastic. Finally he took a pair of heavy shears and trimmed the edge off the package so that the two sheets could be bent back to release the contents.

“Has anyone else had this problem?” he was asked. “All the time,” he said. Another clerk said he routinely trims off the edge of any plastic package before the customer leaves the shop. At RadioShack headquarters, a media-relations person said that’s the way most products are marketed nowadays. He said he didn’t know of any other complaints.

Not so around here. People say it’s driving them crazy to try to open hardware items, drugstore products and packaged foods. A woman finally took a hammer to knocking open the plastic cover of her husband’s new Norelco

electric shaver. A man who has had a lot of trouble now keeps handy a pair of shears heavy enough to clip a penny in half. That does the trick for him.

Packaged cheese and certain candy bars often offer a similar challenge. So do those tough plastic sacks inside cereal boxes. The same for those maddening tamper-proof seals underneath the caps of pill bottles, which came

along after someone put poison in Tylenol bottles on store shelves.

What to do about these aggravations? Cursing them won’t help. Tackling them with a screwdriver or ice pick can end up with a nasty wound in the hand. The best solution is to keep a good strong pair of shears handy. For the food items, a pocketknife may do. (An inventive woman has her own way of dealing with those little plastic packing things called peanuts or popcorn, which can spill all over the floor when you open the box. She opens it in the bathtub – a dry bathtub.)

Still, the manufacturers must somehow be made to know that they have a problem. Complaints to their customer service departments may help. If that fails, it may be time for organization. As Karl Marx might put it: Package openers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your tempers.