I have
a gripe with the CD, cassette and video tape manufacturers of the world.
Ever notice how easy it has become to open a pack of cigarettes? A pull
on a tab and the cellophane's gone; a finger under the easy foil and two
gentle rips; a tap of the pack against the fingers, and another lung destroyer
goes to work. Convenient flip-top boxes have made the process even easier.
I haven t timed it, but my guess is the average smoker can open a fresh
pack of cigarettes in under 10 seconds.
Contrast that with attempting to open a new video cassette tape or CD.
With most, there is no
pull-tab leading to easy removal of the outer cellophane. If such a tab
is marked, usually with the words pull here, the arrow indicating the tab
is pointing to some smooth space were no such tab exists.
CD manufacturers have compounded the problem by adding a strong, sticky,
almost indestructible sealing band to lock the CD box.
Again I m guessing, but opening a new CD probably takes an average of five
minutes. Which means someone with a collection of 500 CDs has given up almost
two days of his life simply removing wrappings to enjoy his purchases. (It
s still safer than opening cigarette packs, I know, but isn t the entrapment
of musical pleasure in a shrink-wrapped prison some sort of crime like false
arrest or promoting violence in public places?)
The message I m getting here is that manufacturers want to make it easy
for me to smoke but hard for me to enjoy my favorite music.
I understand there are times when opening a small package should be tricky
if not difficult.
Child-proof medicine bottles show some genius at work, either with twist-to-the-arrow
press tops or those push-down-and-turn puzzlers that force one s hands into
unnatural movements.
I favor such safeguards. One day when my oldest boy was a toddler I found
him sitting in the middle of the living room surrounded by toys but playing
with an open bottle of aspirin.
There was no way I could tell how many, if any, of the little pills he had
devoured.
Calmly, I called the local poison center and explained to a nurse on the
other end what I d discovered. Equally calmly, he told me to watch the child
very carefully for the next two to three hours and to rush him to an emergency
ward the minute he showed any signs of slipping into sleep or began vomiting
and convulsing.
He reassured me by suggesting
the boy -- he checked my son s age and body weight -- probably would have
had to devour the entire bottle to have a serious reaction. I remained apprehensive.
Nothing came of the incident. I can only assume my son ate none or few of
the pills, but the anxious hours I spent with him that day convinced me
that child-proof medicine bottles were worth every extra cent that goes
into their development and use.
Sometimes, I ve heard, the genius gets ahead of itself and invents child-proof
contraptions that befuddle elderly folks but can be opened by a toddler
in seconds. Such are the marvels of science.
Milk and juice cartons provide another example of inventive genius at work
-- or perhaps run amuck.
Is there a person alive who hasn t forgotten to look for the open-this-side
instruction on a milk carton and spent the next five minutes in a frustrating
exercise of pull-and-squeeze-together attempts to open a tiny crevise in
the waxed and glued cardboard?
I find occasionally even the correct side of a milk carton top simply will
not yield to my squeezes and tugs (for some reason, this seems to happen
more frequently with drinks purchased from restaurants, especially the fast-food
palaces). When finally opened, the carton looks as if some wild animal had
been chewing on the top and the milk or juice pours from the frayed spout
in five or six directions.
Somewhere in the bowels of American corporate and industrial life, there
is a cadre of geniuses at work devising ways to make easy-open containers.
They have created clever, user-friendly openings, but sometimes appear to
have been asleep in customer-convenience class.
The can-opener and the corkscrew stand as mute metal testimony to the genius
of the human mind when it faces the problem of opening things.
The evolution of the pop-top on beer and soft drink cans is proof positive
that someone is out there in manufacturing land thinking about how to make
products easier for consumers to consume.
Child-proof medicine bottles
and packaging no doubt have prevented many poisonings. Alas, easy cigarette
packs have encouraged many early deaths.
The new plastic bottles that contain everything from spring water to cheap
wine open easily with break-away twist tops and easy pull-at-the-arrows
protective coverings.
I even admit that the problem with milk and juice cartons is probably a
one-in-a-hundred difficulty. Generally, the tear-and-squeeze operation works
with the smoothness of abracadabra, and the carton miraculously gapes open
in seconds.
However, each time I purchase a CD, a cassette tape or a new video tape,
I begin a primitive scratching and picking ritual that typically leaves
me cursing and reaching for a sharp, pointed instrument that can be wedged
under the sealed end of the plastic wrap.
Of course, once a breakthrough comes and the opening process is begun, the
cellophane, taking its energy from the static electricity I ve created by
rubbing and pressing the cassette eight zillion times, clings to my fingers,
my clothing, or the CD container and absolutely refuses to enter the trash
can.
It s bad enough that cassettes in music stores have to be packaged in security
frames that open only with the clerk s special tool, but let s face it,
once I ve paid for the CD and not shoplifted it from the store, I shouldn't
have to resort to burglarious tools to get the disk out of its case.
As reluctant as I am to say this, I think I have to recommend that CD and
cassette manufacturers seek some guidance from the tobacco industry concerning
getting the product into the consumer s system as quickly as possible.
I m not looking for CDs in a flip-top carton; a simple strip that easily
opens the cellophane wrapping will suffice.
Short of this, I will urge
the Surgeon General to place a message on all CD and cassette tapes: Warning,
opening this package could be hazardous to your emotional well-being.