The rise and fall of the Salted Cashew
There they sat.
Arrayed in their colourful red and yellow, consumer-attracting, heat -sealed plastic bag.
A hole has been punched in the geographic centre of the top so it can be hung on the little hook on the display just to the right of the bar. Convenient.
Very “Point Of Sale”.
All mouth-wateringly salty looking.
Who can resist roasted salted cashews?
The table has a sticky quality. Drink has seemingly not made it from glass to mouth, and the table top has missed the attention of a clean wiping rag for some time.
Possibly days.
There is a similar stickiness to the carpet – the underfoot feeling leaves the sensation that there is something amiss with the soles of my shoes. A feeling that reinforces the distrust of the cleaning regime.
I sat at the sticky-topped table, clutching my unopened bag of cashews in eager anticipation. Just pull apart the heat-sealed flange at the top of the bag and cashew heaven would be mine!
I am astounded by just how far unsupervised cashews can travel when that heat-sealed top releases abruptly! A veritable fountain of cashews! Up in the air. Onto the floor. Over both shoulders, to every point of the known compass, and beyond.
In the interests of at least getting some cashews from this debacle, I deemed that the ones that landed in my lap were edible, those that finished on the sticky table met the two second rule – at a stretch.
The ones in my drink were not improved by the experience. And neither was the drink.
Those that finished on the carpet – sadly the vast majority of the bag’s contents – were definitely no longer for consumption. Even if I had the inclination to release them from the sticky fluffy matt that now adhered to them.
I didn’t.
The art of destructive packaging
Destructive Packaging has been defined as the modern phenomenon that actively prevents access to the product it contains. Sadly, we encounter it daily.
Because it seems that these days the packaging is more important than the product it contains.
And if by some miracle you do achieve access, the price of admission is the destruction of the product in the process. Or possibly the physical and mental well-being of the person attempting to gain access.
Examples of particular “hates”:
Lift and tear tabs that lift and tear the skin on your finger, leave a serious indent around your finger but leave the tin’s contents gleefully intact.
Gleeful ‘Peel here” labels that come away in your hand but don’t free up anything else useful; the lid, for instance.
Plastic wrapping on magazines that defies entry without ripping the magazine in the process. And to stop people from using the magazine shop as a de facto reading library on wet days. The same wrapping is also emerging as a way to entomb fresh bread.
Glued down foil tops on bottles of pills. So well glued down that it finally comes away with such suddenness and explosive power that the contents are scattered to the four winds. The foil layer is, of course, considerately hidden under a perfectly serviceable screw cap – which in turn is secured by an untearable plastic halo arrangement. Surprise!!!
Seals on bottles of shampoo, fiendishly hidden underneath the jovial flip-top lid. Seals that you don’t discover until you are under the shower. With wet slippery fingers and without your glasses. And you don’t even know the little seal is there until you have finished tearing out he last of your locks wondering why the shampoo won’t damn-well come out!
Labels and price tickets attached to clothing by nylon “arrows” that have been neatly fired through the most unforgiving part of the product and require scissors to remove. Or the labels are sewn on so tightly that removing them risks cutting the fabric.
Plastic milk bottles where twisting the cap is intended to free it from the little ring bit – but doesn’t, and you have to resort to knife or scissors to get at the milk.
The plastic wrapping that surrounds multi packs of toilet rolls or kitchen paper towels.
A questions: why do batteries need to be in plastic inside plastic inside cardboard?
Battery packaging is quite superb. The product is presented in beautifully windowed, cheerful cardboard. The semi-perforated panel on the reverse side of the cardboard is intended for the purchaser to push firmly and batteries will be revealed.
Two thoughts:
1 the panel is not discernible to the naked eye, and
2 the levering action with a sharp implement is a very dangerous manoeuvre that should not be undertaken by other than the very experienced unpackager. Or the very desperate!
Once upon a long time ago, the most challenging item to open was a bottle of champagne.
Can we go back there, please!