I'm quickly getting to the place in my life where I'll refuse to buy anything that requires spending more than two minutes trying to open it. Even a package of breath mints is a major challenge for me.
By the time I got my $3.50 Ice Berg Wint-O-Greens — with Fizzy, Foamy, Fun-Filled Effervescent Flakes — opened, 60 seconds of valuable and strategic time was wasted. I'd missed another golden opportunity to steal a forbidden — fruity, flavorful — kiss in the dark from some unsuspecting — but willing — stranger lurking nearby, waiting for the Senior Citizen Kissing Bandit to pounce again. (Yes, Birmingham Eccentric it's me.)
Only yesterday, I actually broke two well-manicured, nail-technician-enhanced fingernails on a DVD purchase; and I had to resort to scissors, an X-acto knife, and a screwdriver before I could open the damn thing and pop it into my multipurpose Toshiba TV. (To make matters worse the participants turned out not to be my types at all. Too much love in all the wrong kinda places.)
All this tight-cap, hermetically-sealed, product security business goes back to 1982 when an Extra Strength Tylenol "scare" occurred. Some Chicago miscreant, taking advantage of easy access to capsules, substituted cyanide for aspirin content. The ultimate in pain killer, seven people died. Product sales plummeted. Go tamperproof! became the marketing watchword.
I've learned that there's actually a name for my pet bugaboo. (I surely can't be the only one who's agitated by it). It's called "cellophane rage." I got this tidbit of psychobabble from a new book, "Encyclopedia Neurotica," by Jon Winokur, author of "The Portable Curmudgeon."
Curmudgeon Jon's comment under cellophane rage suits me to a T (as in temper-temper-TEMPER!): "Why should you need a scalpel to unwrap a CD?" Why, why, why, indeed. Or, a Ph.D.?
(Could it be that said CD contains a sneaky micro-chip that pinpoints location and, at the same time, relays merchandizing and personal data? Aging metrosexual, practicing paranoid that I am, I wonder. DATA ENTRY: "Gay Male on 43rd Street, Central Park, South, purchases Glenn Gould's Bach Well-Tempered Clavier. Suspect's probably a bottom. Closeted. Republican.")
A hearty sampling of "Neurotica" rages includes: SALAD BAR: "It isn't 'finger food' you e-coli-spreading swine." VOICE MAIL: "I've got your 'Your call is important to us' right here!" OVERSIZED SUV: "Gashole!" BANK LINE: "I didn't know you could refinance your mortgage at the teller window." PONYTAIL: "Face it, dude, you're bald." CABLE: 200 channels and still nothing on." TATTOO: "Why do you do that to yourself? You think that's attractive?"
Then there's rage by proxy. "In 1997 a Durham, North Carolina, driver-education teacher was forced to resign after ordering a student to chase down a motorist who had cut them off, upon which the instructor jumped from the car and punched the other driver." Ouch! Biff! Bam!
Truth is, there's no end of things in life — large and small — that bugger, er, bug us. As comic George Carlin says, "Road rage, air rage. Why should I be forced to divide my rage into separate categories? To me it's just one big, all-around, everyday rage. I don't have time for the distinctions. I'm busy screaming at people."
Good for you George! I have as yet to scream — meaningfully, emphatically — at anybody, but God knows I'd really, really, really love to. Just once. Scream at the top of my recently defrosted lungs. My question is: Do I do my screaming at one person or thing only, or at several, collectively? Should I use a proxy? Or, is that cheating?
