Yes, yes. We all know how much brilliant inventors and engineers have contributed to our lifestyles and well-being. Their knowledge, skill, and inspiration are, well, inspirational. In full disclosure, though, they’ve also had some lapses that drive us nuts. On occasion, I’ve written to the manufacturers with simple requests to dismiss or lock up the minds that created some of their products, reinforcing my reputation as a GOM (grumpy old man). It happens, but it’s all for our collective good.
For example, I purchased a hand-held vacuum a few years back. It works well, except that some clever designer elected to put the vent on the bottom rather than out the back. In consequence, every time I use it to pick up something I’ve spilled – coffee grounds or bits from my paper shredder, scattering whatever it was I was going to clean up. That’s not helpful. Was there any testing at the factory or in the design lab, where someone said, “that’s not going to work.”? This manufacturer has been making these things for years, so it’s not as if someone before me hasn’t brought this design flaw to their attention. And I know exactly what you’re thinking. “Thank God there’s an alert consumer bring these vital issues to our attention.” That is, of course, one of my major contributions to life and our culture. It’s a dark contribution, I know, but it has to be done.
The plastics industry is a major, potent force for safety, convenience, pollution, and aggravation. I know they do wonderful work in the areas of safe and effective medical devices that can be inserted into humans that last well beyond, well, the corpse stage. Thank you. They also provide for food safety by making a variety of storage materials that we can’t get into easily or that invariably fall over in the back of the car on the way home. Whoever thought that putting those little tippy feet on the bottoms of beverage containers was an inspired idea? There is someone with whom I’d like to, as Inspector Barnaby would say, “have a word”. Shouldn’t someone in design have connected a few dots – like carbonated liquids and thoroughly shaken runaway bottles? And what, I ask, is up with those rolls of plastic bags in the produce section? Yes, they’re probably cheap and sanitary, but they’re made in such a way that they are unspeakably difficult in which to gain access. I know I myself have spent tens of minutes trying to open them at the top to put something in them. In fact, most all plastic bags are a combination brilliant invention and the devil’s handiwork. Trying to empty a container of trash into them is an exercise in frustration. The bags collapse, so the trash and refuse end up all over the floor. So I pull out my handy handheld vac and – oh, never mind.
The deli department is just as helpful as the produce folks. They put my sliced deli meats and cheeses into the same tissue-thin plastic, but with a handy zip-lock at the top to keep everything fresh. Great idea. Thank you. Then, they print up the date and price stickers, fold the bag over and put the sticker across the zip-lock. The next time you want to take out whatever is in the bag, it tears it open and jams the zip-lock track. Now, you have to take everything out and put it into a new, zip-lock storage bag that you bought separately. More plastic for the landfill. We’ll see that bobbing in the ocean somewhere, along with someone sweeping with large pool skimmer, trying to retrieve it. Another triumph for indifference.
I’d like to draw honorable mention to the crazed individual that contaminated the pain reliever containers so many years ago. Now, we can’t just open the bottle and pour out a couple of pills. No, no. We have to break through that impenetrable foil that is glued down with the same adhesive they use on the space shuttles. It won’t come off, so we just break the seal and fold it into the bottle. Thus, creating a barrier to getting the pills out. You either get no pills, or ten of them spill out. To prevent that happening, though, the manufacturers have put those little plastic drums in, so nothing comes out. Every brilliant innovation seems to spawn a dozen “what were you thinking?” ones.
A special shout-out to the inventor of single-ply toilet paper. Yes, I’m sure it cuts down on deforestation, but does it really do the job? I’m truly thinking . . . . no. No further details are needed. Some years ago, my wife accused me of buying soft, cushy toilet paper for the back bathroom, which I use, and keeping the front powder room stocked with sandpaper for her. I tried to show it was all the same, I just stored it in the back, where there was more room, but my arguments fell on, well, you-know-what. Now I keep it out front so Lady Plush Bottom can keep tabs on the quality of our bathroom products.
I’d like to extend gratitude to the person that thought taking the bar stool and extending that height to all dining room furniture. That was a burst of inspiration. Maybe the idea was that it would facilitate less bending over for the waitpersons or the bus-persons. However, for those of us that are older, not terribly agile, as well as the physically handicapped. Her Ladyship and I happened to be out and noticed a new restaurant that looked interesting. I went in to check it out for lunch, only to find that it was all skyscraper tables and shoulder-high chairs. Great. I noticed a couple of people sitting precariously on them, trying hard to look comfortable, so we decided not try it. I suggested that perhaps, when they got some tables and chairs to which older patrons can sit without ill effect or serious injury, we might be back.
And while we’re on the subject, whoever thought it was a great idea to put cream cheese in foil wrapping? Obviously, someone that watched it go out of the shipping dock thinking, “another job well done”, but never had to open it on the other end. You can’t soften it in the microwave oven because it will, well, blow up. If you have to let it warm up, and the best you can do here is “room temperature”, trying to take it out of the package is an exercise in futility. Have of the cheese stays firmly attached to the inside corners. I might add, the production crew member who thought to add, “open here”, is just having a laugh at our expense.
And finally, I’d like to pay homage to the thoughtful people that used industrial strength glue to seal the liners of cereal and cracker boxes – in fact anything that comes in a box. In years past, I used to tear them at the seam and voila, a half empty box of whatever. Now, I give the liner a dozen or so tries, and then I pull out scissors and cut them open. That seems to be the only way now to get them open. Another big step forward in safety and . . . . . . whatever.
When my humorous memoirs are complete, I will have a whole chapter on ideas gone wrong. They are right up there with the corded leaf blower, car alarms, and cat-calming medications. That’s my role as a consumer advocate / grumpy old man. As the title implies, when these forward-thinking ideas come out, I’m thinking . . . . no way.
I'm Thinking...No! 