i know i've cut myself, just using utility scissors on that blister
packaging stuff, chief.  then last year, i hit on an idea, that i will share
with you guys once more.  i just cut it from maryz's thread:

"last year, i started telling all my friends and neighbors and
sweetly/"innocently" told people waiting in check-out lines to
ask  the cashiers to open the difficult to get into packaging for them
(which is what i do, when i remember to ask).  and i see that happening more
and more.  our stores are starting to get the message, here, too---it does
tie up cashiers to have to unwrap that hideous packaging for their
customers.<veg>  spread the word, gang."

kate

Tales From Packaging Hell
Page 1 of 2
By Steve Friess
02:00 AM May, 22, 2006

The stubborn plastic casing around the Microsoft Xbox 360 faceplate seemed
to
laugh first at the kitchen scissors and then the steak knife that tried to
penetrate it. When 14-year-old Daniel Mroue's attempt to open the thing with
a
long, serrated bagel knife failed, his parents became concerned.
Mroue's father, George, took over with a pair of box-cutters, which did the
trick. But George Mroue also ended up with a wad of bandages shoring up the
damage after slicing his palm open on a sharpened piece of plastic.
"It was ridiculous," groused George Mroue of the February incident. "There
was
nothing anywhere telling us how to open the (darn) thing. I don't understand
why
they make it so goddamn hard to open these things."
That's an increasingly common question these days. From Psyclone electronics
cables encased in impenetrable layers of thick plastic to DigiPower camera
batteries coated with packaging several times the size of the item itself,
the
hardest part of buying electronics these days is opening the products when
you
get them home. In many cases, it makes solving Halo 2 seem like a
kindergarten
project.
The bottom line is the bottom line. Retailers demand the hard-to-open
packaging
to avoid "shrinkage," or shoplifting, a problem that cost U.S. stores more
than
$10 billion a year or $25 million a day, according to statistics from the
National Association for Shoplifting Prevention. They also want the item to
be
visible to customers and capable of withstanding the rigors of long-distance
shipping from manufacturing plants in Asia.
"In a nutshell, it is pretty much all about retail theft," says Mary Ann
Falkman, editor-in-chief of Packaging Digest, a trade publication.
"Retailers
like Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and the like who sell these small electronic
toys and gadgets demand that they be put in packaging that's next to
impossible
to steal from. But they could make it easier to open it when you get it
home."
The nemesis of electronics buyers everywhere is something known in the
business
as the clamshell or blister packaging, those packages made of one or two
layers
of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, plastic and soldered around the edges.
The issue has become such a problem for customers that Consumer Reports in
March
issued its first-ever Oyster Awards, a tongue-in-cheek "honor" for the most
difficult-to-open packaging genres. Topping that list was the packaging that
electronics are most frequently found in, the PVC clamshell.
But it's not just a matter of customer frustration. These packages pose real
danger. Data on the topic is irregularly collected and vague; the U.S.
Centers
for Disease Control's most recent accounting, in 2001, listed "unintentional
cut/pierce" as the fifth most common cause of nonfatal unintentional injury,
but
that also includes the much more common assortments of knife accidents owing
to
normal kitchen work.
Anecdotally, though, emergency room doctors say they're slammed the week
after
Christmas with such injuries and see them regularly all year. Dr. Christian
Arbelaez, a Boston-area ER physician, sees about a case a week, some as
serious
as tendon and nerve damage that require orthopedic surgeons to repair.

Story continued on Page 2

... Being young is ... I don't remember!