Monday, January 31, 2011

An Irritating Little Something

I have noticed something that irritates me. I do the bulk of my grocery shopping at WalMart (say what you will but it saves me money) and I buy my Coffee Mate Raspberry creamer there. It is a pain in the a$$ to open. It has a very tight aluminum seal under the cap which must be removed and they leave this tiny tail for you to grasp and pull to remove it.

Except...if you are someone like me, with very little gripping ability, incredibly sore finger joints and numb finger tips, this is darn near impossible and usually involves a few non-child friendly words on my part. I've taken to stabbing through it and then ripping it apart as best I can. It's an ordeal no matter what.

Now....if you go to Safeway and buy the exact same product for a little bit more money, it has a fancy plastic ring pull thing which is easy as 1-2-3 to remove.

Seriously? This is the cutback Coffee Mate chooses to make when selling their products to discount grocers? Really? Does it save them *that* much money?

I mean, on some level I get it but come on. I can't afford the time nor the money to go to different stores to buy different products based on their ease of opening (while spending more money). I keep telling Kelton that he is going to have to get really good at opening things for me. :)

Rant over. :)

5 comments:

Shannon said...

Wow! I had no idea there would be a difference in something like that based on how much you pay and at which stores. I'm going to start paying attention to that. And I know exactly what you mean about those little impossible-to-open foil things. They are a pain. I always stab them and then rip them off too.

Tanya said...

How odd. Now you need to invest in some pliers to pull them off. :)

MTV said...

I'm not sure it's different because of different stores. I have bought coffee mate flavor creamers at Wal-Mart and other stores and it seems one time they have that stupid foil stuff and then they have the pull top thingie. I have wondered why they have had different tops and thought maybe they were changing over to the pull top and the foil thingie was like just a "leftover" but anyway if it makes you feel any better that's my two cents worth!!

Kristen said...

Interesting. I buy whichever brand is on sale, so I don't pay much attention to which one has which kind of opening. Here's what I do on those foil lids- use my teeth. Just like the dentist always told you not to do.

Anonymous said...

As I get older and have more issues with gripping and holding (especially small items), I realize what a pain many "conveniences" really are: Those pull-tab soup can tops? Impossible to pull off if your hand doesn't have the strength, and a can opener won't lift the top. The juice bottle? That little foil top? How am I supposed to grip that centimeter of foil on the edge? Argh!! I'm right there with you on frustration!