So, how long did it take you to open those pesky plastic packages encasing your holiday gifts this year?
Was it a few minutes - and a few pairs of broken scissors?
Or did it seem like it took hours as your children's dance of anticipation for a new toy dissolved into frustrated howls as they waited - and waited and waited - for you to break into these aptly named "clamshell" or "oyster" packaging?
Did they hear you cursing Santa for bringing such a blasted contraption into your house?
Us, too.
Leave it to loss-minded manufacturers to turn the joyous act of unwrapping a gift into a tangle with a plastic beast. Sure, we know the clamshell plastics cut down on theft and it's cheaper than boxes, but it sure has ruined the unwrapping experience.
If it's not the hard plastic clamshell, it's the little metal twisty-ties binding toys to cardboard backing. The more insidious manufacturers have turned to tiny, nearly invisible plastic bindings that can't be seen but manage to ferociously contain an item in its box.
Here's a new term to introduce into your holiday lingo: wrap rage.
Last year, Consumer Reports began handing out "Oyster Awards" to the hardest-to-open packages. This year's winners were the Oral-B Sonic Complete Toothbrush and the Bratz Sisterz doll.
Not only are these things maddening, but all this plastic can't be good for the environment. If the plastic water bottle is about to become taboo, so should these things.
Some companies are marketing a special tool to open these anger-provoking packages, but consumers shouldn't be expected to buy a special tool just to break into packaging. Perhaps a new movement should be launched - only buy things that come in a good old-fashioned box.
That will teach them to mess with people who have wrap rage.
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