Christmas is a time of joy and peace, right?
Then you’ve obviously never tried to open the packaging encasing a Barbie doll, with sweet toddler breath on your neck and little eyes watching your every move and – unfortunately – hearing your every word.
I often joke that I swear more trying to get out of the church parking lot on Sundays than I do all week. Opening up those blasted plastic packages at Christmas ranks a close second, for here is where your parenting badge is earned. It’s not so much assembling the toy — smart folks do it ahead of time and stick a big bow on it. It’s getting it out of the package in the first place.
I’m not alone in suffering from what is called wrap rage. According to the American Dialect Society, it’s defined as the frustration one encounters trying to open factory packaging. In 2007 the organization recognized the phrase as one of its “most useful.”
The Consumer Product Safety Commission says such plastic packaging — commonly called “clamshell packing” – has caused more than 25,000 slicing and puncture injuries since 2004. According to CBC Marketplace and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, an estimated 300,000 people go to emergency rooms each year thanks to trying to free holiday gifts. And, according to a poll by the Pennsylvania Medical Society, about 17 percent of Pennsylvanians experienced an injury or know someone who has while opening gifts.
Laugh all you want. You obviously haven’t tried to open a gift lately that is sealed in hard plastic with no obvious opening. Armed with scissors, a Swiss Army knife or a hacksaw, they are not easy to open. One year, Consumer Reports magazine gave an award for the worst plastic packaging to a cordless phone set that took 9 minutes and 22 seconds to open.
Manufacturers started encasing products in plastic to help deter theft – it’s impossible to open the packages with bare hands, so there’s little worry that someone could filch the product and leave an undisturbed box behind. And while one might empathize with retailers, the Center for Retail Research found that much retail theft is done by store employees — accounting for 44 percent of all losses, compared to 35 percent from shoplifting.
But where there is a problem, there is also an opportunity. Companies have invented special openers for the hermetically-sealed plastic packages. So far my husband and I have gutted it out with kitchen shears. Thankfully, that is all that has been gutted as we poke, pry and hack away. By the time Barbie breaks out of her plastic cell, we are ready for another round of coffee and a nap.
So, armed with a sharp instrument, steady hands and surgical lighting, go forth and open those Christmas packages. But be careful out there. Or, better yet, open them before Christmas and stick them under a tree with a big bow. I won’t tell anyone, especially Santa Claus.
