Pluggers by Rick McKee for April 04, 2024

Some of that plastic blister packaging is like miniature force fields that might defy advanced weaponry to open (imagine the force fields of Martian ships in ‘War of the Worlds’). Kids’ toys often are packaged that way, and it’s hard to keep from cussing when trying to get the toys out.

Utility knife with a fresh blade makes short work of ’em.

And they may be right!

What something open quickly? Get a child yo do it.

Sometimes it’s hard even with scissors. Still, I’m worried about that knife’s direction.

Knife? Why kitty use no claws?

A very good point ! One never knows when that package needs to go to the moon ;-)

The manufacturer and user of this packaging should be liable for damages, i.e., when you slice your hand trying to open the package and end up in the ER.

I can think of a couple products that will outlast any packaging used on them: Twinkies, and fruitcake.

You can easily cut yourself when trying to open the packaging. Or you can damage the product by trying to cut the packaging. Or both.

Those gadgets with the tiny ceramic blades that won’t cut you really work well and you don’t need one to get it out of its package.

If the people who designed those packages also designed our prisons, we’d all feel safer.

The person who discovered how to make clear plastic packaging from old scrap metal deserves a Nobel Prize.

Hard plastic takes between 20 and 500 years to decompose, depending on where it ends up [our landfills are so tightly packed, decomposition takes a long time]. And, it never really goes away — it just gets smaller and smaller, until the microscopic bits end everywhere: in the soil, the water, the air, plants, animals and us.

“Because it’s plastic!You know it’s plastic!Everything’s gonna be plastic by and by!” [“Plastic,” poem by Shel Silverstein; song by The Serendipity Singers, 1965]

First there were child proof safety caps. Now there are consumer proof safety caps.

And when cut is sharper and more dangerous than the tool being used to open it. Thank goodness band-aids aren’t in bubble packs as you’d bleed to death before you got one.

The HVAC man gave me a pair of tin snips for opening plastic sealed packaging. They work well.

And we can prove it, too!

Turned into shredded sardines.

This cat’s ending up in the ER! Use your teeth, Pop!

Some of the packages are so difficult to get into that I’ve seriously considered using my table saw. I read about using the can opener to get into a package like that. It didn’t work.

Ain’t that the truth‼️

Peak Darwin, right here. Anger, impatience, flaunting training and kitchen law…

They make it child proof, then us old folks get a grandchild to open it for us.

Worst to open are cd / dvds once you get the outer plastic wrap off, you have to remove the security strips that are on three sides of the case.

We KNOW it is.

I use tin snips on the adult-proof packaging. This guy is about to lose a finger.

Package designer and makers should be forced to open the packages themselves!

I have a collection of impossible to open packages awaiting my once a month house cleaning friend. Lately, I swear she’s doing more package opening than cleaning. Grrrrrrrrrr! :)

And of course, durable means “will last forever, polluting the Earth.”

Thing? We know it for a fact.

They wouldn’t have to make them so tough to open if there weren’t so many people stealing

I have a pair of super heavy duty scissors which come in handy for just this scenario!

I rarely have this problem – husband has it often. I guess when one buys as few things as possible opening things is not a problem. ( I don’t get birthday, anniversary, Christmas or Chanukah gifts by my choice. I have enough stuff. )