Love/Hate Wednesday

Love:

Cheez-Its

Picture this: high school. My friend Neha is sleeping over. We are in the living room, watching … tennis. (Why? I don’t know why. But I imagine the answer probably had something to do with Andre Aggassi.) And talking. And giggling. And passing a box of Cheez-Its back and forth. A box we had opened that very night.

Until the moment Neha looked down at the box in horror and said, “Um. WE ATE AN ENTIRE BOX OF CHEEZ-ITS.”

How had this happened? We had no idea.

Flash forward twenty or so years. Sitting with CG (Digression: I frequently want to tell stories that involve my ex-husband but which take place during the time when we were married, which creates a bit of a quandary  because – what do I call him? My then husband? My now ex-husband? Mr Not So Very Right After All? WHAT TO CALL HIM? So for the sake of not having everything I write be so VERY VERY awkward, his name now and forevermore will be, um, well, I don’t want to be mean or negative, and those are the things that come to mind first (because hello, EX HUSBAND) so … we will now and forevermore refer to him as CG. BUT WHAT DOES IT STAND FOR, you ask, as I only smirk in response. Just know that it’s not mean) and one of his buddies at a campsite in the middle of the afternoon, drinking beers, shooting the breeze, and passing around a box of Cheez-Its.

Until the moment CG’s buddy looked down at the box in amusement and said …

…wait for it …

“Um. WE ATE AN ENTIRE BOX OF CHEEZ-ITS.”

One of my many theories in life is that there are sweet snackers and there are savory snackers. I am a savory-snack superwoman and Cheez-Its are my kryptonite. I can’t even have them in the house, EVER, due to the disappearing box phenomenon. Because it’s one thing to split an entire box between two or three people, but for ONE person to eat a whole box?

Well. Not that I’ve ever done that. Maybe. OKAY, there was that one time, but to be fair I was watching Braveheart and it’s a LONG MOVIE, all right? STOP JUDGING.

(And speaking of judging, don’t even get me started about the inferiority of the Cheese Nip. Those are NOT DELICIOUS. I don’t know what’s wrong with them exactly, but Cheez-Its they are NOT.)

Hate:

RIDICULOUS Packaging

We have ALL had this happen. We buy a thing – usually an electronic thing. Say – headphones.  And we’re all excited about the thing, thinking “OH BOY OH BOY I CAN’T WAIT TO USE THE THING!”

But then – then, we try to get the thing out of the packaging. The thick, plastic, sealed more tightly  than a Kardashian’s grip on reality television and impossible to open without a blowtorch, a saw, and several pints of blood on standby for the inevitable moment when we slice through the plastic and plunge our cutting implement directly through our hand, which will cause your friends and relatives to call us SPIKE from that moment on as we look toward the sky and ask, plaintively of the packaging gods, “WHHYYY?”*

And Why is really the question. Is this overly zealous packaging designed to protect the item? If so  -- do you know how likely it is that I might DESTROY the item trying to pry it out of its plastic prison? Is it designed to deter theft -- “I know – we’ll make it so that if they DO steal it, they’ll never be able to use it HAHAHAHAHAHAHA”  -- because that mode of defense also prevents someone who purchases the item legitimately from being able to use the item as well.

So I ask: is there an EASY way to get past these horribly packaged items? I’ve actually gotten so I try not to buy things that I think I would need an engineering degree to pry open.  It’s just not worth it to me anymore.

To recap:

Love: Cheez-Its
Hate: Overly aggressive packaging

Next week: Next week is just going to have to be a surprise, people. 

*Are you picturing Nancy Kerrigan now? Because I was, but I thinking I’d be classy and not go there. But then I did. Ooops.