The Old Coot is getting a reprieve.
By Merlin Lessler
Finally! A reprieve is on the horizon! It will put an end
to my bottle opening incapability. Plastic bottle caps shrank over the last
decade or so, requiring me to use pliers sometimes to get a swig from a water bottle,
which have the worst caps of all. The mandate was created by bureaucratic
overreach. To save the planet.
A new version of the caps that proliferate our society on
milk, juice, water and other liquid containers will be starting to hit store
shelves in the near future, according to Elizabeth Weise and Dinah Voles Pulver
of USA Today. It can’t be soon enough for me. The new design will make the tormenting
caps we now live with a little less vexing, by making them taller. A taller cap
with a different internal twist pattern will make it easier to open. When you twist
one, even if you are in your eighties like me, it will pop off in a snap.
I’ve complained, wrote articles and commiserated
constantly about my decreasing ability to open just about everything, but
especially items with a tiny cap. I thought it was me, with my old man grip and
diminished strength.
It was me, a little bit, but mostly it was THEM! Those
miserable people who produce rules without any idea how it affects consumers. And,
the bottlers as well, who could care less about us.. Many modern packaging
designs have invaded my world, obviously designed with no consumer input. That
issue, that wrong-headed product development, isn’t of concern to the bureaucrats
or CEO’s running the companies that manufacture them. Their focus is on the
quarterly stock price and how it will affect their bonus.
I can’t wait for the new caps. Maybe then, I’ll be more
user friendly too.
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