Surely anyone who has seen me knows that I am very overweight, and I know that many of you want to ask me about it but you are too polite to do so. I’m going to save you the bother. The truth is that I am fat because I own power and powerful tools. My tools, especially the electric drill, power saws, vise, six-foot pry bars, blowtorch, steel puncture awl, strap wrenches, hammers, and cold chisels make it possible to do something that my wife and fully 72 percent of other seniors cannot do—open the new packaging designed to protect foodstuffs from spoilage, tampering, pilferage, and a 10-megaton nuclear explosion in the driveway.
But this is no slam-dunk. Every time I think I’ve figured it out, some ambitious packaging engineer redesigns their lids using carbon-carbon and M-1 Tank Chobham armor technology (a composite formed by spacing multiple layers of various alloys of steel, ceramics, plastic composites and Kevlar) around the food. The next step is for the manufacturer to use a deep-space vacuum to evacuate the package and allow the atmosphere to apply 14.7 pounds per square inch on the lid as big a manhole cover or half the size of the thimble, neither of which can be removed by hand.
Taking the lid off is a torque test worthy of measurement at the NFL draft combine: “Hey, Kelly, he benched 225 pounds 87 times and opened 11 jars of pickles barehanded; I think he’s ready for the pros.” There was a time when prying the edge of the lid with a bottle opener would neutralize the pressure, but someone told the company that makes our spaghetti sauce and they made the new lids so deep you have no chance of using this method.
I should not leave out some of the medical aspects. You’re standing there with a runny nose trying to cut your way past the eighth-inch thick 12-layer tamperproof closure. What ever happened to the days when you just pushed the pill out through the foil? The new foil is thicker than the sheet metal sides of an Airbus. It would make a great storyline for a disaster movie; a meteorite punches a hole in the plane at 35,000 feet and the hero—a G.I. going home on leave with allergies—patches it with the back of the box from his allergy tabs.
I have not even started on the 1,500 different types of childproof caps, each of which has unique instructions in small print that cannot be read without your new glasses and an LED flashlight.
Unlike me, many senior citizens are undernourished and we usually attribute that to poverty and loneliness, but my guess is that a lot of them simply can’t open the food packages; it’s too much trouble not to mention the danger from accidents. I’m making a lot of jokes, but all kidding aside, this is an annoying and serious problem. Certainly, these ginormous companies can spend a little time thinking about package accessibility by older Americans.
Marty Richman, Hollister
