#734 Easy CD

I suppose petty thievery has pretty much ruined America. At least if you look at the wasted effort and man-hours involved in both its prevention and the consequences of that prevention on the daily lives of consumers.
Of course, in one sense a whole packaging industry has grown up that wouldn’t be around unless there was petty thievery, but I think that’s far outweighed by the personal inconvenience and frustration I feel each and every time I’m challenged to open a theft proof container.
The blisterpack I’ve almost gotten used to. For the first time in my life, I bought a pair of kitchen shears to do it. In the early years of blisterpack mania I tried to pry open the packaging, always worried that if it was too shredded a store might not take an item back.
I shouldn’t have bothered, intact packaging is no longer a prerequisite of item returnation—or perhaps that returnitude.
In any event, the packaging still destroyed any number of regular paper scissors. So now I grab my shears and savagely employ brute force. And dammit, I get the item open.
Not so CD cases. Oh, I can manage the external cellophane wrap. What continues to elude me is the talent necessary to peeling off the top strip of security tape.
I either accidentally break the jewel case at its freakishly delicate hinges, or crack the front from squeezing it too hard in frustration. I have only once in my life managed to remove the entire security strip in one piece.
I broke a cork off in a bottle of wine in celebration.
It’s amazing to me. We live in a society that will force a business doing remodeling to move their electrical sockets two inches lower so a wheelchair bound person doesn’t have to bend as far down. Yet we allow the ubiquity of a security tape on a CD case that even a person with small motor skill impairment can’t manage.
And how much worse for some poor person suffering from arthritis, who’s only looking for a little soothing music to help him or her forget the pain?
America, ya gotta love it.