Are These the Newest Tools for Opening Packages?

[zoobyshoe]

Used to be you could use these:

http://www2.wit.ie/users/art/HOWEVER_BLOW_THE_WINDS/Hands-copy-less-one-resized.gif

Then, you had to start using these:

http://www.misspitasdomain.com/halloween2/teeth.gif

But then you had to start using these:

http://www.altgarden.com/site/propagate/pics/scissors.jpg

Lately, though, I've had to upgrade to these:

 

[Moonbear]

:rofl: The same has occurred to me lately. It's especially frustrating when scissors are sold in packaging that requires scissors to open! :grumpy:

 

[zoobyshoe]

I bought a new tape player a couple weeks ago and went to a coffee shop. I wanted to look the player over while I had coffee and read the literature that came with it. I tried everything I could think of to get it open with no luck. For a quite a few minutes I just figured I was doing it wrong. Eventually it became clear they had designed the package so there was no non-destructive way to open it!

We are now required to break into what we buy.

 

[moose]

Lately, I've been noticing that there is some special glue which under no circumstances will come off...ever, not even with rubbing alcohol or fire or both or anything... The glue is specially made to make you cry :(

Also, I've come across new packaging tape which seems to leave tons of adhesive junk onto any knife you use to tear through it...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Some of the packaging plastics today are amazing. They don't look like much, and the slightest rip allows for easy removal, but just try to rip it up without a helping start.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Some of the packaging plastics today are amazing. They don't look like much, and the slightest rip allows for easy removal, but just try to rip it up without a helping start.

If I was somewhere without scissors or a knife, I used to be able to get that little rip started by sawing on it with a key. That doesn't work anymore.

I finally got the tape player out of the plastic when a guy wandering by bummed a cigarette. I asked him if he happened to have a pocket knife, and it turned out he had a penknife. Even with that it was incredibly hard to saw through this plastic. This is about the third thing I've gotten in the past year that absolutely requires you to destroy the packaging to get it open.

 

[Math Is Hard]

:rofl: The same has occurred to me lately. It's especially frustrating when scissors are sold in packaging that requires scissors to open! :grumpy:

Someone once mailed me a tin can with a can opener inside.

 

[Monique]

When you travel to or from the US, they seal your luggage with those plastic strips that have the locking mechanism that can't be opened. How are you supposed to open your suitcase when you are not allowed to carry anything sharp with you on the flight?

 

[zoobyshoe]

When you travel to or from the US, they seal your luggage with those plastic strips that have the locking mechanism that can't be opened. How are you supposed to open your suitcase when you are not allowed to carry anything sharp with you on the flight?

I haven't had to flee the country...I mean travel abroad, since the '70's, so I haven't run into this.

 

[Moonbear]

When you travel to or from the US, they seal your luggage with those plastic strips that have the locking mechanism that can't be opened. How are you supposed to open your suitcase when you are not allowed to carry anything sharp with you on the flight?

Oh, I forgot that...they did that to me the last time I flew to Canada. :grumpy: I had to ask the front desk of the hotel for scissors!

 

[DeadWolfe]

Someone once mailed me a tin can with a can opener inside.

That's an awesome gag.

 

[Moonbear]

If they make the packaging any tougher, I'm going to need an explosives expert to open them.

 

[Monique]

Oh, I forgot that...they did that to me the last time I flew to Canada. :grumpy: I had to ask the front desk of the hotel for scissors!

It happened the first time to me when traveling from the US to Sardinia in 2002 (just after the Iraq invasion), it took about 24 hours to actually reach the bungalow resort (I was exhausted and hungry), then when I finally reached my bungalow and crashed on the bed I realized there was no way I could open my suitcase, so I had to drag the thing back again down stairs and up a hill to the reception desk..

I came back to my bungalow, ate some chocolates I had bought when changing airplanes, fell asleep at 3 pm (the restaurant wouldn't open until the evening) and woke up the next morning..

 

[jimmy p]

The new game for packagers is to vacuum seal things, and use rigid plastic so it is hard to saw through. I hate that SO much.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The new game for packagers is to vacuum seal things, and use rigid plastic so it is hard to saw through. I hate that SO much.

This is exactly what I'm talking about, this very hard and overly thick plastic that is completely welded together all the way around.

 

[jimmy p]

The plastic is so vicious I usually cut myself on it. I tend to avoid things packaged in that nowadays.

 

[Moonbear]

The plastic is so vicious I usually cut myself on it. I tend to avoid things packaged in that nowadays.

Yep, that's the stuff. How do you avoid it? I can't find much of anything that isn't sold in that stuff anymore.

I can understand when some small, electronic gadget is sealed in that stuff; it helps prevent shoplifting if you can't easily slip the item out of the package. But, I don't understand why EVERYTHING has to be in that stuff.

 

[luckycharms]

The plastic is so vicious I usually cut myself on it. I tend to avoid things packaged in that nowadays.

During one particularly difficult and epic battle, some of it jammed up under a fingernail. I was reduced to a whimpering mess. 15 minutes and a great deal of supressed violence later I returned to the field and emerged with a narrow but definitive victory but looking like I wrestled with a rose bush.

The mother *&@#*$#$# son of a @%&#*#@#$ things are called clamshell packages and they were rated the worst of 237 different packaging techonologies by Consumer Reports. The CDC's number five cause of nonfatal unintentional injury is the "unintentional cut/pierce." We should send this stuff to the terrorists.

 

[Evo]

The mother *&@#*$#$# son of a @%&#*#@#$ things are called clamshell packages and they were rated the worst of 237 different packaging techonologies by Consumer Reports. The CDC's number five cause of nonfatal unintentional injury is the "unintentional cut/pierce." We should send this stuff to the terrorists.

That's brilliant! :rofl:

I actually broke something I bought once trying to get it out of the package.

 

[jimmy p]

Yep, that's the stuff. How do you avoid it? I can't find much of anything that isn't sold in that stuff anymore.

I just find the cheapest stuff that I can buy just to avoid it!

 

[Pengwuino]

You fools, don't you know this is what table saws are for :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

 

[Chi Meson]

That's brilliant! :rofl:

I actually broke something I bought once trying to get it out of the package.

Anyone ele with young kids? Or a younger sibling? Been to a birthday party for a four-year old lately? Toys are packaged in combination clam shells with rivets, screws, and all this thin wire that's looped trough the toy, paperboard and plastic tabs (not to mention tape). I have destroyed several toys already trying to get at them. I have finally learned to come prepared with an assortment of tools from my workbench:

Pliers, saw-knife, cable-cutters , wire cutters, tin snips, screwdrivers, utility knife. Good God!

 

[Evo]

These packages don't stop shoplifters. I remember a woman that was caught walking out of a grocery store holding a frozen turkey between her thighs (under her dress). Now that's a talent.

 

[Moonbear]

Anyone ele with young kids? Or a younger sibling? Been to a birthday party for a four-year old lately? Toys are packaged in combination clam shells with rivets, screws, and all this thin wire that's looped trough the toy, paperboard and plastic tabs (not to mention tape). I have destroyed several toys already trying to get at them. I have finally learned to come prepared with an assortment of tools from my workbench:

Pliers, saw-knife, cable-cutters , wire cutters, tin snips, screwdrivers, utility knife. Good God!

Oh, I know what you mean! It used to be that you needed the tools to assemble the toys after they were unwrapped, but now you need them just to get them out of the package...with a two year-old next to you crying that they want to play with the new toy they just got, and you're crying because you just jammed your finger on something that definitely was too sharp to be child-safe, and the dog and child are fighting over all the small pieces to eat. Why on Earth does a toy need to be shrink-wrapped over a box over a clamshell over a piece of cardboard that seems to be made of kevlar that the toy is bolted to, bound with twist ties, taped, and glued to? And then you still have to assemble it and find batteries, which are of course ALSO in a clamshell package. Unwrapping presents used to be fun.

luckycharms, what a wonderful idea! If that doesn't put an end to terrorism, nothing will! :rofl:

 

[Moonbear]

These packages don't stop shoplifters. I remember a woman that was caught walking out of a grocery store holding a frozen turkey between her thighs (under her dress). Now that's a talent.

I'm not even going to touch the comment that popped to mind when I read that.

 

[dduardo]

These packages don't stop shoplifters. I remember a woman that was caught walking out of a grocery store holding a frozen turkey between her thighs (under her dress). Now that's a talent.

She wasn't shoplifting, she was simply giving birth to a frozen turkey! :tongue2: