Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Ticked Off Tuesday


I'm venting today.
Taking a good long gripe
about nothing in particular,
but announcing just a
smidgen of things
that perturb me lately.

I was doing just fine.
Cooking dinner.
Minding my business.

Until I decided to open
a box of Ritz crackers.

Those four wax-paper sleeves
were all lined up nicely in
the big red box-
but who knew that it
would take Edward Scissorhands
to open one of those suckers?

My gosh- it was practically
indestructible.
Hurricane proof, even!

Then, of course, it couldn't open
on the designated seam,
but instead, it burst wide open,
sending cracker Frisbees
all over the kitchen floor.

Then there was the challenge of
putting them back in the box
and maintain their freshness.

Impossible.

Twist the wax paper?
It untwists.
Fold it over?
It unfolds.
Think you've got it under control?
Suddenly a cracker face
will appear all bare and uncovered
laughing at your apparent idiocy.

It's enough to drive
a woman mad, I tell you!

Same way with cereal.
Why can't they make giant ZipLocks
on all this stuff?

Why can't these people team up
with Martha Stewart and simply
sell crackers and cereal in
those darling plastic containers?

Well,
I'll tell you why!
Because these manufacturers make
ba-zillions of dollars on crackers
and cookies and cereal and croutons
that we throw away!!!!

I bet if they started using specialty seals
on all their packaging
that they'd go broke.

I mean, for heaven's sake-
They can make locks for guns
and locks for chastity belts,
and locks for teenage diaries-
but they can't make a freakin' lock for
a sleeve of crackers?

I can't count the times that
I've sat down to enjoy a rice cake-
and instead of the pleasant crunch-
I get a disturbing mouthful
of popped-rice-Styrofoam, gone soggy.

But even some of those Ziplocs don't work.

Have you ever tried to get a package of
shredded cheese open?
Especially when the first zip doesn't
go all the way across-
so you have to take a giant steak knife
to cut your way through the plastic
so that you can finally get to the real
gripper lock that requires you to pull
both sides with greasy fingers
from the lasagna
and you end up having to cut the whole
darn bag up trying to get the cheese out.

Here again, Kraft makes a fortune
off our dried up, moldy, green cheese.

Well, that's it for today folks.
Just food for thought...
food for thought.

Next time we'll talk about
crippled grocery carts.

But, I warn you-
the language isn't gonna be pretty!