Buying Something is Easy, OPENING it is the Real Problem!

On a recent visit to a friend's home, I brought Starbucks treats - Vanilla Bean frappes and small packages of butter cookies for each of us. We sipped our drinks and saved the cookies for later. When I phoned the next day to ask her how she had liked the cookies, she admitted that she hadn't tasted them yet because she hadn't been able to open the package yet! I knew what she meant because I had been forced to scissor my own way into the elusive sweets. It's not just my friend and I who are having problems - most people nowadays are trapped right along with us in that place where hope is all but abandoned, an inferno more terrible than Dante himself could have imagined ... Packaging Hell.

Packaging Hell has been fertile ground for stand-up comics. Dennis Miller once said that a new DVD had kept him busy for a couple hours - just breaking its seal getting it and out of its box! Ellen DeGeneres has her own excruciating routine about opening hard-to-get merchandise but Packaging Hell originated because of a serious situation.

In the old days, packages and jars weren't properly secured on store shelves. A person could open a jar, stick a finger in the contents, lick the stuff off and - if it failed to meet the discriminating taste test - the would-be shopper could simply reclose and replace the jar back on the shelf. Nobody would be the wiser. I know that people sometimes did this because once I witnessed it. For health reasons alone, this was cause for concern and so somebody came up with a great inspiration.

The Bubble-Top Jar Lid

When this metal lid is unscrewed, its center bubbles up as a warning to potential customers that the product's integrity has been breached. For the consumer, this was packaging perfection - still easy to open but providing a warning if the product had been tampered with - but merchants began to get stuck with bubbled-up products that nobody wanted to buy, so a plastic strip was added as an additional seal. Such security measures were effective yet manageable until the terrible Tylenol murders of 1982 when seven innocent people died, presumably because somebody had laced bottles of Tylenol with cyanide after the merchandise had reached the stores. Johnson & Johnson bore the brunt of bad publicity and massive recalls and other manufacturers noticed. That's when realistic caution was replaced with mindless paranoia and hysterical over-wrapping. Such overkill is understandable and not without its redeeming points but products have become so hard to open that some of us have reached the fine line between not wanting to be poisoned and "I'll Take My Chances."

Smothering everything in extra plastic and paper is expensive and the cost is passed on to the consumer who not only must pay for the item but fight for access as well. As packaging becomes more technical, the Human Factor kicks in so that sometimes things aren't perforated properly, peel-back film seals don't peal back, and pop-top metal tabs won't pop up. Who knows how many products have been tossed away because they could not be opened? Even when breaking into the package is possible, opening the things we need is more problematic than it should be.

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Try to Open a Loaf of Bread!

A perfect example is the way bread is packaged. Years ago, we already enjoyed commercially sliced bread but it was wrapped with a single thickness of paper that was merely sealed shut on both ends of the loaf. Once one of the seals was broken, the loaf was open and could not be properly resealed without a piece of Scotch tape.

Then someone came up with a better idea - a transparent plastic bag secured with twist tie to protect and reclose the loaf. Manufacturers began wrapping and sealing bread the old fashioned way but inserting that into a twist-tied bag. Now we had to open and close two packages, one inside the other. Even that would have been okay but then apparently heat seals were also applied so that although we can still open the twist-tied bags, the inner seal seemed to be fused shut - a solid clump of plastic defying dignified attempts to open. The veneer of civilization wears thin as the half-awake consumer who just wants a piece of toast has to resort to using a knife to stab and pry the bread open with the ferocity of a sleepy serial killer.

What we need now is a good shoplifter!

Most annoying of all are those merchandising and marketing devices designed to prevent pilferage but which in fact only complicate life for legitimate purchasers. A few months ago, I had to use a screwdriver just to get a $19.95 clock out of a cardboard box! Whoever came up with THAT packaging overkill clearly thinks that two screws are going to keep someone from shoplifting the item when really the shoplifter will just waltz out, concealing the boxed item with no problem.

Back when I was still employed at the Bank and thereby forced to look presentable during the workday, I picked up a couple fancy Elizabeth (Claiborne) outfits on sale at Marshall Field's. Thank God I was carrying the receipt in the bag because a siren went off as I tried to leave the store. Guards discreetly surrounded me and and quickly ascertained the problem -- the clerk hadn't pried off one of those electronic devices designed to detect theft.

My receipt for the purchase proved my honesty but when another clerk tried to help me, we all could see what the problem was -- there was something wrong with the device which make it difficult to unclamp. As she struggled away, wrenching away for dear life, I ventured concern that this might not be good for the fabric. She agreed. "But I guess if it prevents shoplifting, it's worth the trouble, huh?" I said. Then she gave me a strange look and said: "Oh, this doesn't prevent shoplifting! The shoplifters have no problem getting these things off!"

How has this affected my own personal philosophy?

That's easy. As long as the storm clouds of potential lawsuits hover on the distant horizon, manufacturers are not going to care about the convenience of consumers and will continue to overwrap merchandise ... so I'll continue to give people packages of cookies occasionally but from now on, I'll throw in a shoplifter to get the gol-darned things OPENED!