I know it's been a while, but nobody reads this anyway. I just feel the need to express some thoughts that I think many, many people will find compatible with their own feelings.

The main point of this is my amazement at the number of products that are designed or packaged in such a way that they are more trouble than they are worth. Does any manufacturer even test the products they put out, or check to see if people are happy with them?

One of the biggest gripes I have is packaging that makes it nearly impossible to get to the product inside without damaging it or injuring yourself. Hard plastic encases so many things these days. You buy a pair of scissors, and the package shows that to open it you have to have a pair of scissors. Or a knife that requires a knife to open the package.

We now have "easy open" containers of all types that are anything but easy. In the old days, you could get milk in a cardboard carton and any child could open it and pour their own milk and reclose it with ease. Now, the glue is too strong or something, and you're lucky if you can even get to the milk let alone have a nice spout to pour from, and God knows you're not going to be able to close it back up again.

Chip bags are now designed with a zip-lock opening, which is a nice idea, except that the opening is so small the chips won't come out and you can't even get your hand through it to grab them and pull them out.

How many times have you gotten a package that says, "Tear here" and when you tried, it would tear everywhere except where it was supposed to?

Then we come to sets of tools, like drill bits, screw driver bits, and such. You play Hell getting the box out of the packaging in the first place, only to find that when you open the box, you need some kind of tool to pry the tools out in order to use them.

One of the most frustrating things designed apparently by people with shit for brains are toilet paper dispensers. They have a wide range of styles, but most commercial versions are insane. First, they mount them so near the floor that you practically have to stand on your head to even find the end of the roll. The paper is so thin you're lucky if you can get more than one 4" square at a time. They mostly have multiple rolls so when one runs out another drops down, but it always drops down on top of the first roll, so you're lucky if you can get any paper out at all because now you're trying to turn two rolls of paper at once by pulling on a piece that is only a few atoms thick. Then, of course, they have to put a lock on the box so you can't open it to get to your prize. Except, they forgot about people like me who simply grab the goddamn cover and rip it open, take out a whole roll of paper, stick it on my thumb, and pull off about a mile of paper with my other hand.

I just bought a bottle of whiskey that had a plastic seal around the top. You couldn't just screw the lid off until you got rid of the plastic, which took several minutes of trying to peel away enough to get a hold of with my fingers, then digging out my pocket knife, which I had to have another pocket knife in order to get it out of the package, cutting myself several times, and finally just breaking to top off the bottle.

I know I'm getting old, and I don't have the hand strength and coordination I once had, but who do the producers of most medicines think are their customers? At 68 years old, I don't need child-proof containers for my meds. Even the non-child-proof containers are a struggle for me.

Okay, I have many more things I could bring up, but I'm getting drunk on that whiskey I opened a while ago, and I've lost a lot of blood. The message here is: don't put up with it! Every time you find a problem that was a result of poor design, write the manufacturer and tell them.