Friday, March 10, 2006
Presently Frustrated
Yesterday was the official birthday of our official no-longer-an-infant. He had a great time with his new crew and here’s a chance to laud the good people at his day care - not only did they have a party for him with helium balloons and songs and games, but they also gave him two fabulous gifts that he is already soaking with the drool of delighted fascination - AND they had a cake. And not just any cake, but a Schubert’s Bakery Mango Mousse cake with dark chocolate flowers and a white chocolate plaque that read “Happy Birthday Zachary” in letters of pure red sweetness. And best of all, the kids didn’t totally love it so there were leftovers for mom and dad to scarf down in an orgy of overconsumption while watching Survivor last night! Oh man it was good cake.... and all the sweeter because it was part and parcel of the day care adventure that’s teaching our boy to dance, clap his hands, and say something that sounds suspiciously like, “Hi, Da!,” when I come home.
The thing I am less delighted with, is what I’ve been forced to learn about how children’s items are packaged. FOR GODS SAKE can’t we please stop the madness? A few months ago Z got a pack of washcloths: they were stacked up in a box that was both shrinkwrapped and also taped securely shut. Each washcloth was then separately taped in three places with really sticky yet flimsy tape, and also tacked down through the fabric with a few of those plastic ties that you can only remove with scissors. Having freed them from those restraints, each then needed to be unwrapped from a central cardboard core. I’ll admit, the package looked nice, but really, people, what the hell? Why must removing a washcloth from a little cardboard package be such an ordeal? Are they afraid I’ll swipe one from the babystore and use it for some sort of illicit wiping purposes? Or do they just want to discourage the acutal use of these products for their intended purpose? In an emergency, I’d have just blotted up any excess moisture with the box itself, since the washcloths themselves were effectively impossible to access without a blowtorch and the jaws of life.
I think the final straw was this morning when I tried to get one of the presents he got from daycare out of its packaging. The toy is a sort of electronic puzzle with a plastic base and plastic animal-shaped pieces that fit into it, and the whole thing bellows nursery rhymes and encouragements to you as you try to match the pieces to their slots. “WHERE’S THE COW? THE COW? YOU NEED TO FIND—NO, THAT’S THE PIG, THE PIG IS NOT WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR, CAN’T YOU JUST FIND ME A COW AND BE DONE WITH IT? WHERE IS MY BLASTED PLASTIC COW?” (or words to that effect.) In a more practical sense, however, this toy is a brain-teaser relating to how to remove the damn thing from its insidious cardboard container. First, I had to take scissors and cut through several pieces of tape that fixed the shape of the box. Then I unfolded the cardboard to open the box but found that it had several cut-out tabs that had been woven into the body of the toy. I worked those off and discovered a separate cardboard backing that was tied to the toy with plastic-coated wires. These wires were doubled over twice for a four-wire thickness, poked up through the cardboard, wrapped around the toy a few times in several different places, poked back down through the cardboard, twisted together with the other ends into a singularity, tied into a tight knot, and then taped down again with large pieces of very effective tape.
There were four of these little wire knots, and once I had untied, straightened out, unthreaded, and removed each of them, only then I could finally pull the actual toy away from the cardboard - revealing that some of the puzzle pieces were also tied down into their spots with supplemental nylon threads, locking them in place and consequentally totally negating the whole idea of a “puzzle,” in which the pieces roam freely and the user gets to figure out where they belong. I needed scissors again to cut through these nylon strings in several places, since they had been prodigously knotted along their length and would not slip through the channels in which they lay. Having freed those two puzzle pieces, I had then to return to the cardboard part of the packaging to find the other three pieces, which were individually locked down in place with blisterplastic that was taped and stapled to the backing.
My fingers bleeding and my breath a ragged gasp, I had finally succeeded in releasing the toy and all its constituent parts from its package. I placed it down in front of Zach and flicked the switch to “on (but not so freaking loud).” It started vigorously singing “Old McDonald” in a cheerful electronically-synthesized voice. Zach responded appropriately - by crying. Well I’m crying too, little man - I’m crying on the inside, where daddys emote. If they can’t trust us with a nice plastic puzzle piece without demanding a password, a multi-tool, and a strategic threat assessment, I guess we’re not supposed to play with those toys. I’d love to let you play with your other birthday presents but the lockdown wires, nylon ties, and laser-guided sentry geese scare daddy. I’ll find you a nice mechanical pencil or a few nickles under the couch instead. It was good enough to injure children when I was a tyke, so it’s good enough for you.
