Saturday, April 14, 2007

Bastards Inc.

This is the name of the company that manufactures all those things you can't open, they've been blogged before but having just sustained a massive cardboard cut from a roll of gladwrap (and then I couldn't find the friggin beginning of the roll) . . . these anti-instructions came to mind.


"Slide finger under flap" - this is the instruction on aluminium foil and GladWrap boxes which leads to lacerated finger tips and the entire metallic strip twisting around your wrist.

"Lift and pull ring" Unless you have teflon fingernails, you need a knife to wedge under the ring pull and again, end up lacerating your wrists in the attempt. Tip: If you have a moustache, don't drink from ring-pull cans. That goes for the men too.

"Remove foil before pouring" This appears on bottles of reconstituted juice, sauce bottles, toothpaste etc. After trying vainly to pour something from such dispensers, you realise that the top of the bottle has foil on it which needs to be removed by only your teeth. Ever got a bit of foil stuck in your filling? It's more fun than sucking a 9Volt battery.

"Vacuum packed for freshness" means that when you finally open the bastard brick of foil wrapped coffee - and again teeth are useful, the contents relax all over the bleedin' floor and dogs will not lick up coffee grains.

"Open other end" - aha! Now this is just a cunning stunt to get you to splosh pouring cream all over your new TShirt, it's a dirty trick - always open the end marked Open Other End.

"Pull to open" appears on plastic lided bottles. You know where you have to tear the tiny strip of plastic around the bottle top to release the lid as in thickened cream, juice and Maggie Beer's Pheasant Farm Pate. Again usually most effective using your teeth and invariably results in contents sploshing in your eye and all over your clothes. Orange juice causes temporary blindness.

They also make sticky tape where you can't find the end, noisy chip packets specifically for eating in the cinema, tissues which aren't properly perforated and empty the box in a continuous stream, impossible to erect folding strollers, child proof caps that you have to ask your 8 year old to open because you can't push down and twist and those pepper mills with the teensy weensy screw ball on the top that always falls on the floor and rolls under the fridge when you want to replace peppercorns.

Any more?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

HA! Perforation is a rip-off!
I was zapping a microwave snack last night that had a note on the film lid: 'Please remove before eating'. Duh? How else are you supposed to get the food out? Mindboggling.

Kate said...

It's probably just as well that the dogs won't lick up the coffee grounds. Them'd be some seriously spazzed-out dogs.

My personal favorites are the demands for telepathy: "If this seal has been removed, do not use product."

Baino said...

I thought of some more actually, Those "Peel back corner" packs. Then there's the warnings on children's cough medicine "Do not operate heavy machinery" and finally (well prolly not quite final) American Airlines Nut Packet "Open Packet, Eat Nuts"

Anonymous said...

I was in a the toilet of a pub a few days ago, drying my hands and reading the instructions on a condom vending-machine. The print below the coin slot read: 'Insert coins, push knob and turn to the left - the knob, not you!' Must be for when you're so drunk all sense goes out the window...