Sticking together isn't always good

It seems to me that the number of unopenable plastic packages has ballooned in recent years. In the past I would just swear a little, use them when I had to and not give them any more thought. Now, either there are more of them, or I’m noticing them more.

One that I find very annoying is a new package that Folgers is using for the coffee they supply for our company coffee service. Previously, the coffee came in pouches, which worked out pretty well. Sure, there were times that the pouches didn’t have a tear notch, so you needed a scissors to cut them open, but that didn’t seem that bad. And at least, you could open and empty the pouch without getting coffee all over.

Now, they have switched to a flimsy vacuum-pack with a heat-sealed top that is supposed to have one corner left unsealed, so you can pull it open. The trouble is that on a good many of them, the corner is sealed along with the rest of the top. Even when the pull tab is loose, the lid only pulls loose for a short distance so it takes real manipulation to dump the coffee. Either way, in most cases, you end up with spilled coffee.

Two other packages that have a similar problem are the tiny plastic cups of cream that you get in fast-food restaurants and the cheese sticks you get in grocery stores. The coffee cups have the same problem as the coffee packages—the pull tabs are sealed tightly to the little tongues that protrude from the cups. The cheese-stick packaging consists of a long plastic cup containing the cheese stick and a cover that is heat sealed to the cup. Both a piece of the cup and the end of the lid extend past the end of the cup.

These are supposed to be separate so you just pull them apart and peal the lid from the package. Unfortunately, many times the two are heat sealed together, so out comes the scissors. At least the cheese doesn’t spill all over you.

“An atheist is a person who watches a Notre Dame—Southern Methodist University football game and doesn’t care who wins.” 

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

.