I was attacked by a package the other day. I was being careful. I have been attacked by packages such as the one I was trying to open before. My instinct was to smash it on the ground, stomp on it and scream into the air when I saw the item I needed packaged in the hard plastic with the sealed seams.

Instead I got my scissors, and cut off the edges. I could not peel my way into it. I was careful but my mistake was not putting on Kevlar gloves. As I was peeling it snapped, like a piranha, and grabbed my finger. The blood war was on. In spite of the blood streaming from my finger I pushed on and peeled and pried and it snapped at me again. I wanted to quit. I wanted to murder the package and then I wanted to scream at the company that put their product in this package. Finally I was successful and I was able to peel the product out of the hard plastic. I shed my blood for this product.

Why do they do that? Why do companies put their products in such hard plastic that it is almost impossible to get to their product. It is impossible to get to their product without harm to our fingers and arms.

Recently the Whistleblower Blog in the Star Tribune addressed the issue. A woman had been cut opening a curling iron. She e-mailed the company and got the standard response, which was this: “All of our packaging meets the standards and specifications of the ‘packaging industry’ and this type of packaging is used by many manufacturers of consumer products.” So they are telling her that they don’t care if we get injured and it is fine because this packaging is used by everyone.

I really take issue with that. We are supposed to accept this packaging and there is nothing we can do about it. I did a Google search to see if I could find why companies use this packaging. I found an interview from December 2006. In this interview it stated that companies use this packaging to deter theft and to make it easier to ship. They are perfectly aware of the injuries and this article even gave tips on what to do if you are injured and what to tell the emergency room technicians. This was 2006, and it seems nothing has improved.

Is no one listening to us the consumers? Maybe we need to make our voices louder. What would happen if every time we wrestled with a clamshell package and cut ourselves we actually took the time to contact the company. I understand we are busy people but if millions of people were bombarding a company with e-mails and injuries and perhaps even sending a company their medical bills perhaps we would see a change.

I wonder if the theory that these hard plastic clamshells prevent theft is accurate. I would love to see statistics on that. It might deter criminal behavior, but it deters me, too. I would even pay a little more money to avoid the packaging.

It seems we have enough frustrations in our day without having to deal with fighting a package. Of course, maybe we should view it differently. Perhaps we should take our frustrations out on that package. So the next time you buy something in a clamshell package use it to vent. Throw it on the floor, stomp on it, scream in rage and then with a little luck perhaps it will have opened itself. You will have accomplished two tasks, getting rid of your aggressions and opening the package without cutting yourself. Your product will probably still be in one piece since the other reason they put it in this hard plastic is to protect it during shipping. Your abuse couldn’t be any worse then the way packages are sometimes handled during shipping.

“Sometimes life gives us lessons sent in ridiculous packaging.” — Dar Williams

National Nothing Day

On a lighter note:

Jan. 16 is National Nothing Day. I hadn’t heard of National Nothing Day before, but apparently it exists. How would you celebrate National Nothing Day? I’ve always thought it would be nice to have a day to do nothing. Apparently this day was created by newspaperman Harold Pullman Coffin, and it was first observed in 1973. The purpose was to provide Americans with one national day when we can all sit around and do nothing.

I have to wonder why we haven’t all heard of this day. Was it a bust? Americans seem to have a hard time doing nothing. How many multi-taskers do you know? I wonder if there is a multi-tasker day. It would seem a multi-tasker day would be easier to observe than National Nothing Day because we spend every day multi-tasking. At least I know many women who do that.

Perhaps we should observe a National Busy Day. But then it wouldn’t be a holiday or a special day because we seem to be busy every day.

What would happen if the whole country observed National Nothing Day? Our streets would be lined with people sitting and not moving, doing nothing. But that can’t be right because if we are sitting by the side on the curb we would have had to do something to get to the curb to do nothing. We couldn’t even have coffee because making coffee would be doing something. Would we get dressed? No that would be doing something.

Do you suppose waking up is classified as doing nothing? Or would we have to keep sleeping? That wouldn’t work because sleeping is doing something. I am very puzzled. How would National Nothing Day work?

The same book told me I had to write about nothing. How do I do that? Wait, I think I just did.

Happy Nothing Day on Jan. 16.

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send e-mail to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net .Her blog is paringdown.wordpress.com. Listen to KBEW AM radio 1:30 p.m. Sundays for “Something About Nothing.”