OPEN SESAME

The Gen Z guy wearing a Red Sox hat at Ace Hardware looked at me like I was requesting the Holy Grail. 

“Huh?” he muttered, when I asked if the store had special tools to help people “like me” open milk cartons, cans of Fussy Feast cat food or those hermetically-sealed zip-locked packages of granola.

I was directed to a back section of the store where a small rack displayed 15 different varieties of can openers, several “church keys” and a square rubber thingie that, theoretically, should release the lid on an air-tight jar of Stonewall Kitchen Wild Blueberry Jam. (It didn’t and doesn’t.)

Food packaging has undergone a serious metamorphosis in the past few years. Many products require mammothly honed triceps to open. I activate my sciatica trying to pull apart the Gorilla-Glued closure keeping Honey Nut Cheerios inside the wrapping. And those clear plastic boxes containing spinach and arugula? Bulletproof! Puncture-proof! Leakproof! Flameproof! Val proof!

I combed the Web looking for solutions, suggestions and maybe some sympathy or understanding. One person wrote on X, “Spring Mix Lettuce containers are quite frankly going to cut an artery in my arm some day. That sharp jagged plastic rip-off-thing that looks ‘perforated’ never breaks cleanly and has cut my finger tips more than i care to admit.”

Another person groaned, “Have ZipLoc closures gotten significantly worse? It takes a PHD to open cheap-ass packaged goods now.”  And another: “Stuff is packaged like it's going to be shot from cannons. I feel for the elderly trying to open this crap.”

I appreciate that concern. I’m elderly and I’m not the Bionic Woman. Plus I’m decades beyond needing child-proof lids.

I mentioned this issue to some friends. One told me she actually took a “screen shot” of the culprit and sent it to her husband at work. Another told me she uses the Heimlich Maneuver to open a bottle of Perrier or Moxie. She’s also given up Imodium.

Those packages of Imodium are truly the worst. When you need to swallow one, speed is undoubtedly a necessity. But it required scissors, a Swiss Army knife and 10 minutes of sweat-inducing arm wrestling to break into the blister pack and extricate the pill. 

My favorite yogurt is Noosa Black Cherry. Houdini couldn’t get into it. I end up stabbing the aluminum seal with a razor-sharp knife because ithe seal is impossible to rip off. Same with Dunkin’ Donut coffee packages and Oscar Meyer bacon. I’ve stopped trying to unseal them. I just take a carving knife and whack the package right down the middle.

And don’t get me started on bottles of ENSURE. The plastic cap clings with more tenacity than a barnacle to a Maine lobster boat.

Granted, there are far more serious issues in the world today than my inability to “Open Sesame.” It’s just one more hurdle to handle in these wonderful Golden Years.