Good Things Come In Frustrating Packages
December 2005 In And Around Town - Delta

Holiday gifts can be a mixed blessing. On one hand, we love giving and getting them. On the other, they can be a major pain to put together -- or even just take out of the box.

All packaging these days is shrink-wrapped and plastic-sealed so tightly that one practically needs a cutting torch to blast open a Care Bear pack. Tenderheart Bear will surely need Post Traumatic Stress therapy, because at some point in the attempt to free him from his shackles, I've tried hacking through the packaging with a knife, a la Norman Bates in 'Psycho' (cue violin shrieks here).

And then once one gets the outside package open, the party is just getting started. Take those wires that hold toys in their boxes-- please! I still have toys wired in their boxes from my daughter's 2nd birthday -- and she's 3! There are at least 15,000 wires holding a single Barbie shoe in place. They take days to unwind -- or at least it seems that way when your child is whining over your shoulder.

I know in this day and age, there are security and shipping liability issues, but these are items like Fisher-Price Little People sets, not Fabergé Eggs!

While we're on the subject of toy frustration, manufacturers’ instruction manuals seem to be printed in every language, including Sanskrit and something that appears to be a Vulcan dialect. I know we live in an increasingly global economy, but could they limit them to the Top 10 languages in the country in which the product is sold? Then I also wouldn't need a microscope to read the .2 pixel typeface the printer needed to use to fit everything in the manual.

Even if they did, I'd be still find myself muddling through the little French I know to put together toys because in my effort to find the English directions, the manual has become origami, and French is the closest thing to a language I kind of understand that I can find in the mess.

The directions will be rendered useless anyway, not because they're crumpled beyond recognition (which they are) but because I will turn the project over to my husband, who, like husbands all over the galaxy, never reads directions anyway. I believe the Vulcan instruction manual even clearly states, “It is not logical for men to read instructions when there is so much football to be seen.”

Joyeux Noël, happy holidays and live long and prosper.