CREDIT: THEPACKAGINGINSIDER.COM
Wrap rage happens when it becomes more than challenge to open a simple package.

So, I was at Toys Cost' Us the other day to pick up a gift for a kid's birthday. Endless shelves of foreign-produced plastic crap molded into friendly, colourful forms wrapped in more plastic crap produced in foreign countries by poor 12-year-old third-world displaced rural children who had to leave their indigenous farm to earn 99 cents a month by tying in every Polly Pocket shoe with small bits of wire made in the factory across the street.

Packaging isn't something I often think about or place much weight on in my daily life; however, more and more my life is temporarily hindered by the current state of packaging. Toys, light bulbs, hardware, video games… somewhere along the line there occurred a shift in packaging design. When we were kids, we peeled off a thin layer of Saran wrap and opened a cardboard box containing our new toy. Now, displayed behind a thick layer of clear plastic resides the object of our attention. Marketing departments around the world have flocked to the use of plastic clamshell bubble packaging, allowing the product to be splayed out in all its glory to make the product look bigger than it is, allow for safe shipping and add a billion tons of extra garbage to our landfills annually.

Perhaps I should have adjusted my assessment of Skylanders Giants to take into consideration all those millions of blister packs now (not) rotting in landfills all over the world.

My inner child finally settled on a Pokémon toy (an electronic Bulbasaur). There displayed behind a layer of thick, clear plastic sat my inviting gift. Numerous small accessories tied with care to a cardboard backing displaying Kanto in all its glory. An artistic backdrop to hang Bulbasaur and his silver-coated wire tethered accessories hanging amongst a backdrop of quaint hills, flowers, a bright sunny cloudless sky and the obligatory Pikachu peeking out from behind a log.

I needed batteries for my gift, because it needed batteries. I think that instead of having the ability to simply recharge your items is so contrived that it reeks of consumer manipulation! The companies that produce toys, flashlights, game controllers, smoke alarms and most all consumer products must have an excess of caustic alkaline nickel-plated iron canton tubes in a sulfuric acid bath that they need to dispose of. The batteries were conveniently stocked in the shelf beside my Bulbasaur. They were also nicely displayed in hard plastic bubble shell blister packaging. I now know why they call them blister packs.

The opening of Bulbasaur replaced such party standards as Pin the Tail on the Donkey and Duck-Duck-Goose. The kids laughed and laughed as I first tried to rip the package open with my hands, before resorting to my teeth — something they took great delight in reminding me that they are told not to do this. My mirth quickly turned to irritation, anger and confusion before settling on pain. I later learned that there is a name for this series of conflicting emotions: wrap rage.

Wrap rage is named for a heightened level of anger and frustration resulting from the inability to open thick plastic heat-sealed blister packs. Apparently thousands of consumers suffer injuries every year from tools used to open packages and from the packaging itself. Papercuts pale in comparison to a blister pack gouge.

So you move to a more varied assemblage of useless implements of destruction to open up Bulbasaur: a pen, a pair of safety scissors, a fork and the nail clippers all fail to make anything more than a mark on the package and an ink-filled hole in your leg. Next thing you know, you've got the cake-cutting turkey knife in hand and start impaling the package with a blur of primal thrusting motions. HINT: you can also use the same knife to unscrew the miniscule screws securing the battery cover. You may chip your knife, and stab your lap, but it beats buying a new eyeglass repair kit that comes with a screwdriver and magnifying glass small enough for this otherwise delicate operation. I actually left this party without successfully opening Bulbasaur, my wrap rage repressed deep inside with the help of two Valiums proffered by a more experienced wrap-opening mother at the party.

Shortly after the Bulbasaur fiasco, the legitimacy of “wrap rage” became clear to me. In a fit on insomnia, I found myself up at 3 a.m. watching The Shopping Network. There to my amazement was a tool guaranteed to open all forms of packaging without an overt amount of effort and no actual pain. This tool promised to put an end to wrap rage for only $19.99. I instantly ordered it and waited patiently for six to eight weeks. Unfortunately, the tool arrived in a hard plastic bubble clamshell pack and I didn't have my turkey knife with me.
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