Gotta be smarter than the box?

The instructions for the "easy open" spout on the box of Coco Wheats says to (1.) Press gently on red dot to break perforation along blue line, and (2.) Insert fingertip behind blue line and pull down to form spout.

Right.

Like my fingertip is going to fit behind the blue line without pushing the entire cardboard flap back inside the box. By the time I'm done wrestling with it, I'll have nearly destroyed the whole box. If this is the easy open spout, I'd hate to see the hard open one.

Sometimes I wonder why packaging designers do this to me. Do they derive some kind of sadistic pleasure in making packages that I can't open without the use of heavy machinery?

The worst are the ones that say "some assembly required." I don't know what they do in factories, but they certainly don't put things together. My guess is they just hire workers to package up boxes of raw materials and ship them out. They also throw in a little baggie of random mixed bolts and an "easy" picture instruction sheet with no instructions--just warranty information in 24 different languages. (Yeah, figure that one out!)

And if by some fluke of fate they manage to sell something that doesn't need to be put together, they at least make sure it's impossible to get out of the package.

I dread Christmas morning. After the flurry of unwrapping presents is over, my husband and I spend the next sixteen hours trying to take the toys out of the box. First there are the twisty ties--4-foot long masses of wire and plastic holding every loose piece down to the cardboard. Then there is the tape for all of the soft pieces. They wouldn't want Barbie's hair to get away, so it must firmly be taped down. Then all of the cardboard is wired to other pieces of cardboard and reinforced with plastic flat pieces and taped down. My heavy machinery gets a lot of use that time of year.

I don't know why packaging designers hate Christmas so much. And children.

Or maybe it's just me?