Ok, so I’m at the grocery store the other day trying not to freak out about how much the prices on absolutely everything have gone way, way up.
I’m at the produce section and I’m pulling at a thin plastic bag hanging from the Thin Plastic Bag Dispenser and the bag is hanging down as if the dispenser is sticking its tongue out at me, and I can’t get the #$%^& thing out of the Dispenser and I’m shaking my head and now I have three thin plastic bags stuck together and still jammed in the dispenser and I’m trying to stuff two of the bags back into the dispenser before I attempt to rip one bag out of the dispenser and I’m mumbling something PG18 and a fellow shopper walks by.
He sees my angst-ridden struggles with the thin plastic bags and says in a friendly fashion, “Someone should write an article about that!” and goes on his merry way.
I realize he must be one of my 15 confirmed readers and I say, “I just might!” and he looks back and we have a little chuckle.
Then, later that day, I’m feeling a little peckish and I dig a snack out of the fridge consisting of two sealed sandwich bags, one with some cheddar and the other with some ham and I set about to knock together a quick sandwich (and maybe one for the Better Half if she bribes me sufficiently). And this is where, for the second time that day, the trouble starts.
I can’t get the stupid sandwich bag open! It’s not one of those fancy ones that I much prefer – the ones with little plastic zippers or big flaps on the top, I mean the ones that are zipped together but only have a quarter of a millimetre on the top edge that nobody with human fingers can possibly open. At least, I can’t, and as far as I know, my fingers are entirely human. So I finally get frustrated times two and just poke big holes in the stupid sandwich bags time two and dig out the stuff. My sandwich didn’t taste nearly as good as it should have on account of me being still mad at the stupid sandwich bags.
And don’t get me started on shrink wrap. I like to get six bottles of Canada Dry Ginger Ale in one go, and of course, the six-pack is encased in a thick steel shroud of nuclear plastic.
Although it’s “soft” material it is impossible to penetrate without an acetylene blow torch or a Star Wars light saber. I’m a slow learner, as regular readers already know, so I always attempt to break into the nuclear plastic shrink wrap with my human fingers (including human fingernails), but it is always to no avail. Then I always grumble and go and find the heavy-duty scissors just to finally rescue the pop I’d paid so much for.
And unfortunately, it gets even worse. Shrink wrap “PVC”. Hard plastic product packaging straight from the hubs of hell. When you try to get to your batteries or your shaving blades or your crazy glue tube out of the cardboard card it’s mounted on and entombed in the same clear plastic material that they use on the underside heat shield of the Dragon space capsules, well, good luck. And when you finally get your razor blade box cutter out to saw away at the PVC covering you cut yourself every single time.
But here’s the rub: you’ve cut yourself on the flippin’ hard plastic shrink wrap!
I’m not sure what the answer is, but I personally have an eye on that acetylene blow torch.
Harley Hay is a Red Deer author and filmmaker. Reach out to Harley with any thoughts or ideas at harleyhay99@gmail.com.
