Fiery Balls a Burnin’ -- Or -- For the Last Time, I am NOT FORTY!!!

Not that it’s all that old. Not that I don’t love all you 40-year-old folks out there. Not like I won’t get to be 40 years old some day. I just do not happen to be that ancient, old and crusty, yet. I’m just, not. No really, it’s not a big deal; I just don’t happen to have one foot in the grave like some people might think.

So after my eye appointment and after my double-eye dilation thing today, I got to do some other fun stuff. I got to have my 6-kegger blood work done. I got to have wicked cool x-rays of my breasticles taken by a lovely X-ray Lab Hottie. Then I get to the grocery/pharmacist and dropped off my “script.” (That’s how them fancy medical people say prescription.) This is not your every day script (There, said it again and I don’t even have a stethoscope.) mind you. This is for the rare and cosmic form of eye drops that requires “all hands on deck” for it to be released to my person. The very attractive brunette that took my script said it’d be about 15 minutes. (Heeeeeeeeello! if you’re reading. I’m the too-shy-to-say-hi type.) No “problemo little darlin’” I thunk to myself and my blind ass was off, out the door, so I can be a texting fool in the comfort of my own auto-mo-gadget. Let me just say, if you’ve not yet tried to text just moments after a double-eye dilation, try it. It’s rather psychedelic as the abbreviations undulate in a rhythmic fashion across the screen as if they were toying with you knowing that your blind ass can’t tell if it’s them or you.




After 15 minutes of keen texting communication at it’s best (Thank you Bone Machine.) I’m back in to see the Lovely Miss Drugstore Debutante about my sassy script. She has unfortunately moved on to another citizen in need of a selection from her pharmacopeia of goodness. I am now blessed with a fetching young blond who requires access to my…card. I am disappointed to find out that this in fact means she needs my prescription card. I quickly zip my pants, back up a step, apologize, and blame my temporary double blindness and whip out my other…card. She is unimpressed of course, and then examines my prescription card. She keys away at the prescription PC. She studies the prescription card closely. She keys away x 2. She then inquires deeply, begging of my intellect.

“Is this the most current PRESCRIPTION card you have?” I could tell right away she was actually impressed with both...cards. (It was her inflection that gave it away.) I assured her that it was, at which point she had to call THEM. THEM being the INSURANCE PEOPLE. (Insert ominous tone from Series 642 here.) Approximately 15 minutes later THEY pick up the other end of the phone and she reads in my SSN number. “Oh, ok, thank you!” She turns to me, again to ascertain information from all of my lobes, frontal included. “Sir what is your Year of Birth?” After sheepishly telling her it is 1969 she informs me, “For some reason the SYSTEM (Insert ominous tone from Series 642 here.) has your birth year listed as 1964-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4.” Her echoing, yet cute, voice drilled into my brain.

Suddenly I was awash with déjà vu, which is very hard to cleanse from your person. (I would later resort to tomato sauce when I got home. I would also later realize that must be for something other than the washing of déjà vu.) I kept thinking back when just a month ago everyone at the office kept thinking I was FIVE years older than I really was. I began sprouting grey hair…out of my EARS. My wrinkles began to look like erosion on a poorly plowed field, and I haven’t been plowed in ages!

I awoke to, “Sir? Sir? That will be $12.” I paid, and groggily drove home. I kept swerving around black birthday balloons taking up the whole width of the road. Large chocolate long-john donuts as big as a city bus kept shooting birthday candles at me…forty at a time.

I rushed into my humble home, eyes swollen with pain that looked like shattered glass orbs with bloody roadmap inlays. I quickly realized I had soothing medication for them. I tore the receipt off the bag. I tore the “How To” instructions off the bag. I tore the “Don’t Abuse” warning off the bag. I tore the bag off the box. I tore the box off and unwound more “How To” and “Don’t Abuse” warnings off the bottle. Ah, finally, the medicine! My poor aching broken glass orbs were just minutes away from…ah, what’s this?!?! Plastic “For Your Protection” Wrap!!! Noooooo!!!! Don’t they know a double-blind 40 year old in the midst of a déjà vu trauma, that doesn’t know his card from his card, can’t open Plastic “For Your Protection” Wrap?!?!??

This packaging probably sucks, but my blind-ass self can’t see it to know for sure. Waaaaaaaaaaaa! (Ouch, my eyes.)

Lubrication

I know, you REAL men out there don’t need no lubrication do you?

Come on, I can’t hear ya. “HAIL no!” There you go, much better. You real mean like your body parts all dry in a brittle-crusty and crumbly state. You enjoy it when the cool breeze fills in the reddened cracks increasing the discomfort and bringing blood to the surface. You even think it an improvement when you get dirt, mud and motor oil mixed in this flaky bloody mess. Shows you’re rough and raw exterior. Shows your true grit. True enough grit for even the Duke to well up and get all misty. (If he were actually still alive.)

Me, I’m a wuss. Yeah, I’m addicted to the stuff that is lubricant. To demonstrate, I’ll tell you a quick story. The last time I visited my grandmother, in the senior home before she passed away, I had to re-introduce myself. Again. She wasn’t quite as sharp as she was back in the day, and easily forgot names (of the entire family). I didn’t take it personally, I just listed out all 862 nicknames I had when I was a kid until one of them registered with a less than hazy-glazed-over look. Then she took my hand. “Oooohhh! Your hands are so soft!” Now if your hands are soft enough that your mammaw takes note, that’s some serious hardcore softcore right there. I’ve got bottle of lotion next to my computer at home. I’ve got bottle of lotion next to my computer at work. In addition, I’ve got Chapstick in every inside coat pocket and one for my pants pocket. I am “rude cubed,” got my tubes, and ready to lube!

After depleting bottle after bottle of “Daily Moisturizing Lotion, with Natural Colloidal Oatmeal” I’ve come to grow frustrated with, and I know this will surprise you, the packaging. It’s all in the nozzle. Upon first use, there is way too much nozzle nuzzling required to get the party started. Someone with intense training in the Classical Arts of Fine Nozzle Fabrication decided to throw in a little fun into the works. There’s the initial quarter turn of the spout so that it may be released with a springy step from its countersunk hole. But if you don’t get the alignment just right, due to over or under compensation, then the tap shall not rise. You’ll be lost in mesmerizing and dizzying spiral action that can’t be stopped unless a friend or co-worker runs into you full-force as if trying to knock your body clear of a magnetizing electrical charge. Of course after you’ve managed to unlock the ancient secret of the lotion pump, you have a period of use that is virtually problem free. I say virtually because we’re all too familiar with the following lotion bottle issues of anxiety:

1. Post-Nasal Spout Drip – this is where you’ve pumped a glob of colloidal oatmeal, retrieved said glob and detracted your hand from the spout, only to find more lotion was on the way. Now you can either let it hang there like a little snot drop, or you can be over-lubricated. Neither of which are ideal. The call is yours.
2. Stuffy-Nose Spout, a Log Jam – Your lotion, despite being used within the hour, has contracted Stuffy-Nose Spout. Your lotion has apparently been making out with another bottle of lotion that has a case of the pump eebie jeebies and is now all stopped up. If your hand is improperly positioned, where the lotion booger flies is anyone’s guess. A two-handed lotion retrieval motion is suggested as to avoid having an uninvited goober guest fly up your sleeve. Nothing worse than having chilly oil-soaked surprise waiting for you at a most inopportune moment. Refer to the Handbook on this one folks.
3. Does the damn pump EVER reach the bottom of the bottle so you can actually get to the entire product you paid for? No.

To the bottlers of my “Daily Moisturizing Lotion, with Natural Colloidal Oatmeal” I give you the following image, because, you’re packaging is so sucky, it doesn’t even suck the product out of the package. Now that’s some suckessoucity if ever I saw it.

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Wow, Thanks!!
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He-Loooo Kittyyyyyy! Rrrrr rrrrr!
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Love is in the…Can You Hear Me Now?

How do you tell your father Happy Birthday while dining at the new Japanese restaurant in town? You say it with blog.

How do you tell your son he’s the bestest dude in the whole wide world? You say it with blog.

How do you tell your pup he’s a good boy when he brings the ball back to you? You say it with blog.

How do you tell your high-school-age niece that her swirly cell phone cover looks like the Partridge Family’s bus the day after a nuclear meltdown? You say it with blog and in a way that she knows that her cell phone’s packaging sucks!! =======>> jk !

25 or 6 to 1 (or givin' the dog a bun)

It’s been a mystery of life for eons and one that mere mortals will never be able to fully understand, because…(dramatic pause) it makes no sense whatsoever. Perhaps there is some kind of rationale behind the process, but it floats over my brain’s ability to figure the shit out. That’s not really saying too much, because most things in life make absolutely no sense to me. In fact, I don’t even make sense to me. Thankfully, I am a chipper and upbeat person and that compensates for it. I also tend to be a tad sarcastic and snotty.

With the big melodramatic build-up out of the way, I will ask why in the blue hell do hot dogs come in packages or eight and hot dog buns come in packages of ten? I’d really be interested in knowing the facts, because I am baffled. Baffled, I tell you, baffled. Sure, I have my personal theories and I will get to those momentarily. This is the time to scratch the head, strike a perplexed pose (and stopping just short of Vogue-ing), and say “Hmmmm…” Sort of like Rodin’s class sculpture, The Thinker, but in a pose that doesn’t look like intense defecation is taking place. That kind of thing could scare children and it’s just inappropriate, even to a fan of toilet humor and vulgarian such as myself.

I figure the manufacturers of hot dogs get the ball rolling. Without hot dogs, what is the point of having a hot dog bun? Theoretically, they could still make the bun, but it’s going to need a name change, like Prince. “The Baked Good Formerly Known As A Hot Dog Bun” or something to that effect. In a worst case scenario, the Baked Good Formerly Known As A Hot Dog Bun could be associated with a symbol, also like Prince. A symbol shaped like a hot dog bun seems rather appropriate to me. What else is going to work? It’s a freakin’ hot dog bun.

If it is indeed the hot dog folks calling the shots, then the problem must be the bun people. Either the bun people have shoddy (that’s a nice way of saying “shitty”, by the way) math skills that are actually worse than my own, they’re out of touch with the hot dog industry, they just don’t care, or they’re on dope. Perhaps it is a combination of any or all of the above. In order to have an even ratio of dog to bun (or Baked Good Formerly Known As A Hot Dog Bun), you’d need five packages of hot dogs and four packages of hot dog buns (or Baked Good Formerly Known As A Hot Dog Bun). (Look at those math skils fly. Public school education in all its glory, baby.) Who on this planet eats forty hot dogs at one sitting? Excluding those 75 pound Asian folks that always manage to win all of the hot dog eating contests.

It could be that they’re just really generous people and want to go the extra mile for you, the hot dog consumer. In the event that you drop a bun (or Baked Good Formerly Known As A Hot Dog Bun) on the floor or ground, here’s an extra bun for you. In the event that one bun (or Baked Good Formerly Known As A Hot Dog Bun) develops a mold culture, throw it away and you’re still okay. In the event that it’s an epidemic and several buns have mold on them, give those buns to people you don’t like. If you launch a bun (or Baked Good Formerly Known As A Hot Dog Bun) at the head of a loved one, you’re still ahead of the game and you have an extra should you miss on the first shot. The possibilities are endless.

While the mystery has yet to be solved, it’s good to have options in life. You can have a product and packaging that makes sense or you can have a product and packaging that sucks. Knock yourself out.

One for the ladies--the gratuitous ass shot.  

Why in the blue hell do hot dogs come in packages of eight and hot dog buns come in packages of ten? 

Pullin' the Cord

Unless he's going parachuting, my dog doesn't need a ripcord. So far he's yet to express any interest in suiting up, flying up, and dropping down until he's loftily carried to Mother Earth. (That must make it Father Moon?) Since we don't live near any large bodies of water, Mayor Morris excluded, I doubt he'll have need for a life raft with its pull-to-deploy mechanism for easy inflation. Though he appears to enjoy a rousing game of fetch, I don’t really recall him signing up for any deep-sea deployment, or any quick tours on a tramp steamer. (Which reminds me, the next time ole Tramp makes a steamer on my carpet…)

Apparently savvy marketers beg to differ. After picking up my pup's plentifully pounded parcel of pedigree provisions I try to recover from the resulting hernia so that I may prepare myself for the next feat. To give me a better experience with my product, the packagers have elected to go with a ripcord. Obviously the stuff within doesn't need to rush out of the shoot like an avalanche of alimentary rations. I'm not completely convinced however that the pull-it-till-it-burns cable is my preferred method for fido food retrieval.

I've had multiple scenarios of problems with the Cord of Death, or C.O.D. as it’s more widely known. Occasionally the cord, in its entirety, just backs its ass on out as if withdrawing from the line of Free Butt Shaving in the men’s department at Sears. Now and then I get a feed bag that has the cord, you can clearly see the cord, but it’s completely embedded within the impenetrable bag in which it is intended to open; the reason for the cord’s existence in the first place.

It’s gotten to where I examine the content evacuation twine before purchasing the Purina. I look for proper coil construction and quality. I look for proper placement within the bag (not too far from the edge). I look for things like length, rigidity, and girth. (Hey now, no funny ideas there.) I often ask myself, aloud, “Is this going to give me rug-burn and make me scream RAWHIDE! like I was ridin’ and ropin’ out west?” (I’ve also found the ladies have an unusual look on their face when I ask them this question on the first date. Of course, that could be why it’s often the last date.)

During this whole process, all Jack does is look at me with tail wagging and puppy dog eyes and says, “I just want my food, I don’t care if the packaging does suck.” That dog does make a point, so the cord I rip, the food I spill, and the curse words I cry.

So, to the folks of Purina, from me and my pooch, you’re packaging WOOFS!

A famous case of the jimmy legs. 

Jimmy Legs & Eebie Jeebies

Ooooh! Ooooh! I know this one Miss Charli!! Pick me!

As you can see in the diagram the model’s DNA makeup, or her “package” if you will, had become completely discombobulated after years of just plain livin’ wrong. See the human package is made up of many delicate systems that if out of balance, can (in the vernacular) “suck mightily.”

Notice first the head in figure A. Oooh, that’s got to hurt. Look at all those lines and shit.

Figure B shows…oh, let’s move on shall we? Yes, here in figures C and D we clearly are viewing Eebie Jeebies and Jimmy Legs wreaking havoc on our poor young model’s body. While she is our model, we did not pose her, this is how she is forced to stand due to her sick and weakened state. Imagine, facing the world each day, with your head frozen back and your arms flailing about as you do your interpretive dance in the periodicals section of the local library.

So the moral here being, take care of your package, it’s the only one you’ve got. Oh, and wash your hands. (What? 10 more seconds? Shit!) Uh, yes…do some of that flossing bidness and uh… Did I tell you the one about the man who won the lottery and came home to tell his wife the news?

And that wraps up our segment on, “Mistreat Your Body and Have Anonymous Strangers Walk up to You and Say: Your Packaging Sucks!!” Thank you, and goodnight!

Come on Vanna, let’s go home and spin some letters.

You Got Somethin' To Say About My Package, Punk?

Call him the Come-Back Kid if you must, but he just insisted on being a tie-in between the newly posted logo and the biscuit eatin' gunslinger. Give 'em a taste of the limelight, and they're never the same. He said something about going for a Clint Eastwood look, but I don't see it.

Weapons of mass destruction indeed. 

Canned Heat

So, in an email comment I received today concerning the “Potential to Preserve” post, I’m reminded of canned biscuits.

Something that comes from the grocery with a rare high-level of a coolness factor is canned biscuits, and/or cinnamon rolls. The idea is to just peel away the nicely colored foil wrapping, depress the inner cardboard tube with a spoon, and bake. (I was going to make a comment on how little effort it should take to do that, but I quickly realized how that might be too closely associated with a Jackson Five song and I don’t want to go down that road today. “ABC, easy as 1, 2...” Crap!)

It doesn’t seem to be brand specific, and maybe it’s my complete lack of coordination (and trust me, my lacking is complete), but the crap don’t work. You hold the biscuit bullet in one hand and spin it with the other looking for that little rectangle that’s intended to be a door handle. After spin #52, you find the little goober and slide your nail under (being careful not to get that now infamous Morton Salt SLICE!) and begin the Spin and Peel technique. Only thirty-three and a third of the way through the stripping, that’s just what you end up with. Strips of foiled wrapper, never the wrapper in its entirety can be removed. (Insert grinning & cursing here.)

Once you’ve made the choice of either removing every tiny shred of wrapper you can find, or just moving on with what you have, you’re to the fun part. Or what could be the fun part. What had the potential of being fun…until you screwed up the wrapper. See this is the part where you’re supposed to use a spoon handle to depress the spot, as indicated by nice & sassy arrows, to cause the cardboard seams to separate. This accomplishes two wonderful things. The more immediate being the fart noise the can makes as it opens. (Wee!) And lastly, the exposing of your raw biscuits. (“I could use pants.”, says the Gnome.) But in all your efforts, you have been deprived of the fart! Why? Because you screwed up the foil exterior biscuit security device and thusly prevent a proper exit of the internal Gasses of Fun. DAMN! Not only that, but now you have to rip, claw and tear into the tube of food…just to get to the food.

After all this time, out of all this effort, you can smile to yourself knowing that your oven is in fact, pre-heated. But whoops, it’s not on the right temperature is it? In your haste, you turned on the oven to start the preheating phase, but neglected to check the container for the proper temperature. The baking instructions are in the colored foil dust, now laying at your feet. Ain’t that a kick in the pants?

This just boils down to the fact that, biscuit makers of the world, your packaging sucks! (Booooooo!) (Hsssss!)

ECHO, ECho, echo......
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Packaging from the Past

Forgive me for a second, and I may live to regret it, as I break the rule of pointing out packaging that sucks.

When I was a kid we used to go to the Western Sizzlin' about once a week. I don’t know how many remember that steakhouse, or if you had one in your town. We’d walk in, hang a right and thanks to the short dividing wall, had to keep following and L-shaped path all the way around the corner until we got to the end of ordering counter. It was one of those pick up your tray, get your silverware, and sit it down on the long thin counter with the raised slide bumps for easy maneuverability. Granted the ordering counter was long, and the L-shaped path was a couple of miles in length, but they were both needed as the placed was packed full like.

I always got a funny look from the order taker when I ordered coffee with my #1, medium well and a baked potato. Almost everything in the restaurant was brown, if memory serves me correctly. Brown wood paneling, wooden tables and chairs, brown waitress uniforms. All brown, including the dingy and tracked carpeting on the floor. Oh wait, it was a red carpet, with little squares in the design I think…but it was brown due to all the traffic.

Once we got to the table, our regular waitress, Sandy, greeted us. She was always warm, welcoming and well, a little loud. I used to run her ragged trying to keep my mug full and keep creamer on the table. Then the day came when Sandy no longer worked there, service of course went downhill and eventually we quit going as often. Later the restaurant would close its doors. I’m not claiming the loss of Sandy was the driving force in the closing the place, but her leaving didn’t help.

Now I don't remember how old I was or what year it was, but fast foward at least 20-25 years, and move south on Frederica Street a few blocks. The greeter at Wal-Mart looked awful familiar but I could never place her. Weeks and months would go by and I could not remember this lady but I thought I knew her as I passed her each week. One day I heard her voice as she was talking to another customer, and I was like "Sandy?" I didn’t choose to approach her just yet, didn’t want to interrupt her greeting prowess.

The other day, when I finished my shopping, it was a slow day by Wal-Mart standards. As I was exiting the building, I saw Sandy and decided to approach her. Her eyes lit up behind the familiar glasses when I asked her if she used to work at the Western Sizzlin'. “Yes!” she did as I placed my order again for the first time in 25 years. She remembered Mom and Dad (of course, they were the ones that left the tip!) and thanked me for remembering. (She also commented on my good looks at which I took as my cue to leave.)

A salute to you Sandy and your wonderful service and continued smile. Your packaging, though not perfect, is far beyond sucky. May the Your Packaging Sucks!! Gnome stamp you with approval and label you as “Memorable Packaging.”

Now if I could just get my hands on a #1, medium well with a baked potato…

We now resume our regular programming.

Plastic clip bastards in all their glory. And damn, what a stackable shirt! 

Potential to Preserve

Recently I had a biscuit urge. (No this isn’t potty humor day.)

I had the urge to consume large quantities of fresh baked biscuits with strawberry preserves. (No gravy for me thanks. I often wonder about gravy though: Who was the first person to heat up animal fat, throw in a little ground-up dried weed and then have the nerve to eat the stuff?) So on my next grocery grabbing jaunt, I picked up some biscuit mix. I knew in the back of my mind that I had all the needed ingredients to make biscuits from scratch. But if I’d gone with those ingredients, I knew I wouldn’t be able to complain about the Not-So-Easy Pour Spout. Besides, my biscuits suck, and I needed a head start. Once home I realized, Doh! I don’t have any enough strawberry preserves to go beyond like one biscuit, much less the large quantities I thunk of earlier. Finally, weeks later I make it back to the store and I’m looking for my preserves. Now, to me, with a name like Smucker’s it’s got to be overpriced, but I usually buy it cause it’s goo-ooo-oood.

This time around, I notice a competitor’s offering. I look at it and it’s like, “Strawberry preserves in a squeeze-bottle? What the?! Of all things evil, vile, perverted and bizarre! Who, in their right mind, would do such a thing to Strawberry Preserves??!” It was outrageous. It was ultimate doom, disaster and apocalypse waiting to happen. (Is there an echo in here?) Strawberries already go through whatever punishment is required to make them into preserves, now they must endure the indignity of being forced through a tiny exit just moments before being consumed by a smelly creature. (Smelly, though half a level above a cow. Moo dat.)

So, of course, I bought it.

What? I live on the edge man! Real mean squeeze the holy crap out of their preserves with might. (So that’s what the kids are calling it these days, “Squeezing the Preserves”?) We don’t need no stinking spoon, nor do we require any badges at this juncture.

For now, however, I shall have to press the pause button on this post. You see, I have yet to test the stuff. I have the mix. I have the potential to preserve. I had the time to bake the biscuits this past weekend, only I forgot. So my little untested bottle patiently waits.

Pause.

What's up, Doc? Hair Pins Not Shown
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Distress to dress for success

Every girl may be crazy about a sharp dressed man, but chances are good that every sharp dressed man is crazy from trying to remove all of the pins, cardboard collar crap, collar button guard, and plastic clip bastards from a snazzy new shirt. The shirt company could just cut the shit, put the shirt on a hanger, and pass the savings on to you, the sharp dressed man, or the lady that is crazy about said man.

But no, a hanger would make things much, much too easy for everyone and we can't have that now can we? The answer is no, we apparently can't have that. In a day and age when everyone is on the go and busy cubed, the process of dropping coin on a nifty new dress shirt can be a fairly tedious process. The search and acquisition portion of the process is probably the easiest part and quite often that involves dealing with a shopping mall. It's all downhill from there.

Once you get your fashion statement (or fashion question as in "What the hell...?") home, you're faced with removing all of the accessories that helped make your shirt stackable and so damn attractive in the first place. Like most things in life that strike your fancy, they will eventually come back to stab you in the back...repeatedly.

There must be an interplanetary law that says every dress shirt must have no less than 85 straight pins in the shirt...somewhere. It's up to you to find them. Just when you think that you've found them all, HEL-LO! There's another one or maybe two. Hopefully you chose a color of shirt that goes well with blood stains.

After you've checked the shirt with a metal detector for stray pins, you've got to deal with the collar protection team, because the cardboard backplate has probably already fallen to the floor along with 18-20 plastic clip bastards and a family of immigrants trying to buy into the American nightmare.

The collar protection team is often a two-piece and definitely not as enticing as a two-piece swimsuit attached to an attractive lady. The first piece of the two-piece collar protection team is usually a funky-shaped piece of clear plastic attached to the penthouse floor button at the collar. For what it's worth (approximately 23 cents Canadian), this particular button will always be a son of a bitch to button and un-button. It has attitude because it worked its way to the top, like George Jefferson. The second piece of the two-piece collar protection team is a cardboard belt type of contraption that will make the collar stand up all tall and proud. Although it no doubt wants to simply droop being seen in the company of the straight pin militia, a fleet of plastic clip bastards, the two-piece collar protection team, and the immigrant family riding their way to freedom up the sleeves.

It's a wonder that people subject themselves to this crap when there are other options available. Give me a tattered black t-shirt, because dress shirt packaging sucks...vigorously.

Crust Particles, Evacuate!

Let me state the obvious right at the beginning. I am not the cleanest of animals. I know this and I accept this fact. Sure I believe in sound bathing practices and oral hygiene bla bla bla, but I’m sure there are other creatures cleaner than I.

Let me also state that while I am in no way connected to, or knowledgeable about, farm animals, I would like to hope that I am at least half a level (in cleanliness) above a cow. Moo dat. Moo to your mutha. Fo Moozzle.

Now, something is wrong with your packaging if your product can escape its boundaries with little or no encouragement. Sure, once you get it home, you wanna get the crap out and do whatever it is you do with whatever it is you got. Little or no hassle is the goal. Today’s beef *cough cough* is with jugs. Uh, MILK jugs. Sorry, that could have been utterly offensive to some out there in the pasture.

While in the dairy aisle, you clearly remember the other blog you read about how to pick out the best, jugs. (I’m worried about the censors already). You scan for THE bottle through the transparent door, keeper of freshness. You compare expiration dates, looking for the longest lasting jug possible. Nuttin’ worse than soured teet-pus right? Once you’ve located the date most juggerific, you then attempt to find this exact date closest to the center of the herd. That way you know this little heifer be the chilliest, and has the juice to keep you satisfied. There it is, score! Rope out your lasso, and in the cart she goes. Yeee Haaaaaaa! (I am not trying to be gender biased; it just seemed wrong to call something with jugs and contains milk a “him”, ok?)

Once home you’re anxious to fill a tankard of this mucous-froth teat-pus and down it like you’ve just come from the Sahara staying alive on nothing but fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. You then experience the first part of the problem: Your milk has been segregated into it’s own plastic shopping bag. Hmmm, could this be a packaging issue you ask yourhighlyinelligentself? Heck no! Hmmm, but why is the bag clung to the jug with sticky moistness? Ah, no bother. Peel…drip drip…splat. And now for the kicker: You locate the milk jug tabbed pull ring zipper device thingamabobber and give her a yank. Even if it comes off in one piece (yeah right), you now have milky mucous-pus-crust particles accessorizing your kitchen table. Mmmm, tasty! Gee, it seems as though the milk jug tabbed pull ring zipper device thingamabobber doesn’t keep the milk in the jug…isn’t that weird. It’s so potent and virile, and yet ineffective. (No it doesn’t help that these ineffective rings make free toys that cats love.) (But at least it’s an improvement over the old Origami Class of days gone by when you had to unfold a cardboard carton to get at the White Teat Snot.)

This is Bo Vine signing off with a saaaaaaluuuuuuute that your packagin’ sucks like they’s no tamorree and ya slept thru yesterdee!

Moo moo, moo moo moo moo. Moo.
Cuh-Rustay!

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CDs, Salt, Bottled Water - So Confusing!
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Calling Ponch and Jon, this package sucks.

Once again, there may be some rhyme to the reason, some method to the madness, and some quality control issue that I don't fully understand. Is there a reason why snack chips of all varieties and styles are sold in thin bags?

You spend precious minutes of your life pondering which bag of zesty sour cream and asbestos flavored potato chips you want to invest in while fighting off the throngs of other consumers seeking the optimal bag. You make your decision and you are secure with it. "THIS bag of chips is a bag to be reckoned with. This is the ultimate bag of chips." You finish your consumer activities and truck your happy self home. At some point, you open your bad ass bag of chips and realize that no less than 93% of the bag has been pulverized to powder. Nice.

There is absolutely no way that your sour cream and asbestos chip particles can intermingle with the tasty new avocado and roofing shingle flavor of salsa. It's a disgrace. Your potential match made in taste bud heaven has been shot down in flames because of packaging.

Zip this!

You're saying to yourself, "He's not going to get snotty on Ziploc bags, is he?" You damn right I am. While this technically is more of a product issue than with the packaging that it sports, work with me here. If you are a purist and think I am defying the concept, tough shit. You didn't pay anything to get in here, so no refunds will be given. Have a nice day.

So you're ready to fix yourself a meal and have too many irons in the fire. You remember that you have some nifty cocktail weenies in the freezer and they're residing in one of those snazzier than snazzy Ziploc freezer bags. You went all out and got the freezer bags, because no one wants their green pepper funk intermingling with their cocktail weenie goodness. This ain't no Reece's Peanut Butter Cup commercial. You manage to get the weenies from the freezer while you're talking on the phone and simultaneously reading chapter 8 of War & Peace. Now, War & Peace isn't one of those thin reads. It is a big ass book. You have to be a weight lifter to cart that bastage around and most people don't do that while assembling fine cuisine such as cocktail weenies at the same time. You manage to get your weenies from the bag (there is no doubt a dirty joke there somewhere, but I'm trying to retain my PG-13 rating) and try to seal the bag just like they do on the commercial with one bold zip across the strip.

I have never been able to do the single bold zip and be done with it. Oh hell no. It is one bold zip then about twenty-five individual zips to make sure the pouch is fully sealed. Otherwise, you got green peppers putting the moves on your other frozen goods and some of those frozen goods are sluts. They'll get it on with any other icy item in your freezer. I guess when you've been encased in a frozen package, your selectivity is a thing of the past.

I guess the good folks that make these products had the divine revelation that their product sucked, because now they have the clunky-ass sliding thing that literally does what the previous variation was supposed to do. This is a rare case of the packaging being sufficient and the product being a tad lackluster.

Salt of de Oyth

Salt. I love me some salt. Salad, no dressing…salt it! Pizza? Salt that bad boy mightily! I wanna see the stuff as it comes out of the shaker, and I wanna SEE the stuff on my food. Now I don’t necessarily want a blanket that disrupts the textured goodness of my food in a gritty gross kinda way, but I wanna see my salt.

I want to see it fashioned in a sort of Net of Flavor sort of way. Burgers, pop the lid, net underneath the hood, close ‘er down and gorge. Now with "layered foods" you have to go with a multi-net attack. It’s more of a:

1. Receive fries
2. Net fries
3. Partially consume fries
4. Re-net fries
5. Consume remainder of fries in a salty sense o’ satisfaction. (Apparently Mr. Jagger just doesn’t know how to "Net ‘em" but I don’t want to be his beast of burden.)

Having said that, there are foods that even I don’t salt, they got it goin’ on just like they are, no changes required. Rold Gold Pretzels. Damn. Now there’s an item that’s been salted up good and proper such that it’s a shame to throw out what browned salt remains in the bag when the knots are all but gone. I must admit that on occasion I’ve been known to still a pinch of that browned salt in the bottom of the bag and scarf it down, but not all of it. I don’t want to wear out my salty welcome you know.

Obviously, I go through a lot of salt. Morton’s of course, and the little cardboard can, round box whatever it is, it’s just so cute minus one little problem.

I think this problem is likely a phobia of some sort. I think it only happened once, and it was so long ago I’ve nearly forgotten the details. But it MUST have happened, because each time I go to open a new little round cardboard thingy of salt, my Spidey Sense starts to tingle. (Come on, you know you have it too.) I peel that little paper sticker off to reveal that metal hinged spout doo-floppy. I see that and ooohhhhh, I start to quiver. See, ya gotta slide your fingernail under that thin aluminum hinged metal spout in order to open it up to get to the good stuff. Simple enough. Only once I did that and that evil aluminum thing went a little too far under my nail and SLICE! cut the crap out of my thumb. This is not a good situation. You’re in need of a salt fix, it’s in your hand and now you have to go find a Band Aid, totally breaking your process of eating, which is just bad. Sure it only took weeks or months for my thumb to heal and it was only a couple of years for the pain to go away…but the fear lingers. I’ve had to, over the years, resort to using a butter knife just to open those suckers. I can’t bare to face the pain, bleeding, and worst of all, break in my whole eating process. Therefore, and reluctantly I might add because I don’t want to rub salt in any wounds, Morton Salt folks? Your packaging sucks!

For Use on Fountainous Sprays Only
Wicked Action Shot! Tx to Hello

Thar She Blows!!

People. PEOPLE!! A little cooperation please? Thanks!

So raise your hand if your office/work place/center of torture can be related to in degrees Kelvin. One…two, yeah, that’s what I thought 6,000,000 of you raised your hands, sweaty palms out, and splashed me right in the eye with salty pellets. Gee, thanks. But my point is proven, we all work in a hostile environment without the benefit of protective body condoms. (Sadly, as much as I sweat, I continue to remain the same weight.)

Needless to say, I consume water. Lots of water. Sure it’s good for me, but when I feel like I’m competing in Survival of the Office Fittest, it’s well, less enjoyable. Now, call me paranoid, call me a germaphobe, call me out as being an anti-social little sucker…but I bring my own bottled water to work with me. Every day. (Unless I’m out of course.) I do this because I enjoy having a sense of ownership. No, it’s not that. I do this because I enjoy adding weight to my laptop bag. No, that can’t be it. Let’s see, oh, here it is. I do this because I don’t want to borrow other people’s germs that have collected at the water fountain. (I know, you’re like, “Dude, come on! It’s like don’t let your bottle touch the spout and you’re like germ free and shit. Whoa!”) But to that I give you a resounding, “No, thank you germy.” (Yes, that made my speakers echo as well. No, I don’t know how I do it either.)

My routine is that I grab chilled bottles of wawa out of my trusty and reliable fridge as I hit the exit just before jetting off to work. I slide into my spot, complete with nature’s own accessory I like to call Birdy Dropping Awning and I scoot on in like the good boy that I am, water in tow. Next, I pop on the monitor, give a smack to the power button on the box and I retrieve (insert musical flourish) my water, water, water. (That was supposed to be read with like your own echo affect. Please re-read if you left that off back there. Thanks!) I plop my happy little bottle of wawa on my custom coaster (Made by my own bad self.) and I give the cap a hearty wrench. Twist? Whichever, I give it one of those and here’s the rub…water squirts out like I’ve harpooned a whale that’s beached its fat ass (Sorry, no offense intended for any whale lubbers out there.) on my desk. Now, after the mandatory verbal assault, a laborious use of a mop, squeegee, and that cool powdery shit your sprinkle on spills to do the work for you, I realize two things happened.

1. Whilst twisting Cap A with Hand B, Hand A (in the heat of the moment, as you can imagine) squeezed with too great a force, therefore releasing a fountainous spray the likes of which mankind has yet to witness.

2. The bottlers of my brand of water, have a wealth of sucky packaging!

Liberating CDs from their plastic jail

I'm not sure who the genius was that created the shrink wrap and sticky title strip on top (a/k/a The Bastard Strip) of compact discs, but they should probably work for NASA constructing space shuttles. No offense to the NASA engineers, but the CD wrap seems to be even more durable than the crafts that we're sending into space. That's some serious shit right there.

I understand that CD's are of small stature (and maybe size does matter after all) and would therefore be easy for someone to swipe, so they require intense shrink wrap to prevent someone from easily unwrapping the disc and claiming it for their own. I guess the lure of a new Creed CD is simply too much for some people to resist. Personally, I wouldn't steal a Creed disc even if it was given to me. Anyone trying to push that kind of evil shit off on me is facing an endless barrage of verbal abuse and it is viewed as a declaration of war.

But with all that said, unwrapping the shrink wrap sheath that encases a compact disc is a bitch. There is nothing worse than waiting for a particular CD to be released and when you finally get your greasy fingers on a copy, no one wants to go into battle with sheets of transparent plastic. If you are fortunate enough to chisel your way through the outer wrap, you still have to contend with the Bastard Strip attached to the top of the jewel case. I've been tempted to remove it with a hack saw or even dynamite, but I tend to be an extremist. When the process is done and you've liberated your music from the plastic, it's the equivalent of a prison escape, except it is probably easier to break out of prison. If you go through all of this work to get the disc out, one can only hope that the music is good. While I don't necessarily condone the downloading of new music, I can almost justify it because it means not have to deal with the shrink wrap hell.

Hot Cocoa Sucky Packaging Action Shot!
Wicked Action Shot! Tx to Hello

Tinfoil Denouement

You groggily wake and disappointingly realize some large landmass has made your sinus cavity its home. Your eyes are as puffy and crusty as a fresh-baked (sweet, little, apple) pie. Your voice sounds as though you’ve done away with your nose completely. Ah, yes, all signs pointing you in the direction of your allergy medicine.

There it is, on the desk next to your Color Glow (Good packaging by the way! Glowstick protective sheaths and all.) glowsticks where you left it. Yeah!

You pop open the new box, giving it a toss, saving these medicine card thingies that were tucked safely inside.

Now the race begins. Today’s match is between your Allergic Flow and your Dwindling Sanity. You’re only on cup # 1.5 of your coffee, so your fingers don’t exactly get along like good siblings should. You’re attempting to get your hesitant fingernails in on the act, but they aren’t having it. In fact, not only are they not having it, they start that militaristic chant, “Hell no! We won’t go!” As the damning dispute of your digits ensues, you’re unable to wedge a single nail between the thin layer of sheet metal foil, and the armor plastic tray – undoubtedly designed by the dynamic team of NASA Engineers and Mr. Wizard. (No offense to NASA and Mr. Wizard of course. I’m digging rockets, and experiments with baking soda and vinegar. Rawk on!)

You’ve done the unthinkable. In your heated rush to crack open the medicine safe, you’ve ignored your email and cursed the dog (twice). You contemplate biting, but are overly concerned the sheet metal foil will alter the taste of your java, which is un-cool to say the least. You consider giving it the Scissor Jab, but are fully aware of how your digits have been behaving this morning, and opt not to give them SHARP objects, albeit shiny ones. Oh yeah! What about that Forceful-Push-Up-From-Below Maneuver? You know the one, where you raise the action a notch by trying to force the product upward by pressing on the armor plastic tray, hoping for a puncture in the sheet metal foil. Yes, that’s it! You go for it!

Come on, come on! “Bend you accursed armor plastic medicine tray thingamabobber! Bend!” you demand. You see it; you see the sheet metal foil dome building, expanding. You increase your pressure, vowing not to give up. The plastic bends, buckles and finally CRACK! Half of your medicine launches itself to freedom, and half is retained in the tray, hidden from view by the foil. (This is a minor issue of course, because you’ll save that half for later, right?) You go to retrieve the projectile portion only to find out it’s been obliterated into pint-sized prescription particles and your desk is now covered in a nice thin layer of blue dust. Great. No bother, just go with the other half…until you realize it’s been obliterated too and, until you remove the remaining foil that was apparently holding said particles together, now you become a renewed Elvis fan because you’re wearing Blue Dust Shoes.

You look up to the heavens, snarl your upper lip, give your hips a shake, (in your best Elvis impression tone) and let out a hearty “My prescription has left the building! Your packaging Ssssuuuucks!”

Hot Cocoa Anyone? It’s the kind with marshmallows…

I know, I’ve done it too. You get it in your head that you just gotta have some hot cocoa. Yeah, nothing gets a warm feelin’ in the belly like a good cup of thick-chewy hot molten-lava cocoa with bubbling frothy marshmallows. Ahhhh.


You even cheat a little don’t you? Yes, you warm up milk, instead of water like that package calls for, just to make it better. Sometimes you even use two packages of mix to make it all gooder and shit. But you forgot what happened last time didn’t you?


Don’t you remember? Watch out! Awe, too late, you did it again. In your haste to make the perfect cup of chocolaty goodness…you get out the mug and spoon first…start the milk to warm in the pan….open that brand new box of cocoa…and then, and this is the part where your excitement got in the way isn’t it? You decided that even though you were going to use two packages, you were going to separate them at the perforations between the two pouches first. Don’t lie, you did, and I saw you!! And now look, you’ve got cocoa all over your crotch because your fingers were too far apart! Yes they were, if they weren’t, then how did it happen??!


See! Your fingers were too far apart from the center line of perforation, you pulled too hard in excitement and those damn perforations actually held….and the cocoa spilled forth from the rip that is now in BOTH pouches. Uggggghhhh! And to top it off, the tears are well below the marshmallow chunk equator and so shit will be spilling out for days!!


People will now refer to you as “Cocoa Crotch” or “Marshmallow Manhood” or something equally demeaning. And why? Because, and I feel I have to inform the makers of the little paper cocoa mix pouches, your packaging SUCKS!!

Rinse, lather, repeat

And another one:

Is it just me, or do all shampoo bottles suck? I mean really. I feel like life is too short, and that we all waste a lot of time getting the shampoo out of the spout, so I try to sit my bottles upside down on the side of the tub.

I know, they don’t all work like that, some have those tiny little flip cap thingies. Uh, yuck! Either you get the kind that peeps up over the edge like a little turtle shampoo bottle, or you get that type that SLAPS back no matter how easily and gently you close it…thus getting shampoo in your eye. Nobody needs that, do they?

What I do, is I try and match my brand choice, with a sound bottle design. So like right now, sure I cheaped out and got the Equate brand and while it’s not perfect, it could still use some help. I tried to get a good deal like we all do now and then, and got the “Family Size.” Well it seems that while the bottle has nice straight sides, and the cap is like nice and big and all full-size and whatever, it’s the family size that’s the problem…there’s just too much product! It makes for a bottle that’s all heavy and just one little tiny bump and BOOM! you’ve got this 80 ton shampoo-bottle-bomb on your toe. So, to the bottlers of Equate shampoo…YOUR PACKAGING SUCKS! (Though not completely.)

Your Packaging....SUCKS!

The Idea:

This blog is aimed at those out there, in any industry, with sucky packaging. Doesn't matter if it's food, cleaning products...or socks...if your packaging sucks, you may see it listed here for all to see.

For example:

SHAME on you (whoever you are) for locking up my tiny postage-stamp-size SD Memory card in an iron-clad plastic container the size of a large elementary school folder!! I had to resort to my trusty Swiss Army knife (really, I have one) just to get the tiny thing out. I know Wal-Mart may be trying to avoid as much loss and prevent as much theft as possible, but SHEESH. That plastic was HUGE, and tough, too tough for my tiny wittle muscles. What's up with that? So...evil packager of SD Memory cards....YOUR PACKAGING SUCKS!!