Beat furiously here to open

Today I was defeated by a bottle of screen wash.

I now realise that packaging is ganging up on me.

All I wanted to do was have a clean windscreen. I wasn’t to know that I was going to have to face a Krypton Factor-style test, and wind up wrestling on the floor with 2.5 litres of blue stuff and one of those press and twist lids normally reserved for the evil that is Paracetamol bottles.

When my wife finally rescued me from my tearful state, I discovered that there was then one of those foil and plastic discs, stuck onto the opening, as a final two-fingered salute from the screen wash. As usual, scrabbling at its surface wouldn’t un-stick it, and it’s flexible nature meant piercing it was impossible too.

Eventually, I had to resort to scissors. I know the intention is to prevent children drinking it by mistake, but honestly – if they’re clever enough to get through that security nightmare without hurling it out of the nearest window, I’m guessing they aren’t the sort of kids to swig on the blue stuff.

Long time followers will remember my trauma with cereal packet innards that tear when you’re trying to prise them apart, and the subsequent emotional nightmare of a fortnight sprinkling Rice Krispies on your foot instead of into the bowl.

Supermarket own-brand yoghurts have an (alleged) bit of the film lid you can use to get started on the tense opening procedure, but even the England football team haven’t truly felt defeat until they’re sat looking at a yoghurt pot with just a strip torn from the middle of lid, and no hope of gaining access without half of the milky mess winding up all over your fingers.

I’ve purchased many shrink-wrapped CDs that I’ve resorted to attacking with my teeth, after the little tear strip failed to fulfil either of the obligations its names suggests it should be capable of.

Wine boxes seem to be sold with the assumption that the purchaser has a degree in engineering, and any Tetra-Pak that has one of those “tear along the line to open” deals will only result in more on the counter than in your chosen receptacle.

I have genuinely bled after trying to unscrew another one, only to find one of those pull rings which, when tugged, usefully comes away leaving the carton still perfectly sealed and your finger in need of medical attention.

Even cheese triangles come with a level of red tape that Civil Servants can only aspire too, assuming their fingers aren’t covered in sticky soft cheese.

I’m convinced that the last human being will be lying, starved to death, next to an unopened plastic container of milk, with scratch marks on the foily bit, and the broken-off little pull-tab stuck under their fingernail.

Their face will be a terrifying death-mask of frustration and self-loathing that we allowed the packaging to win.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 8th of August 2014. You can view it on their website here, where it appears to have been used in it's entirety. 

As you can tell, after last week's brush with the complicated world of potential libel, I've stuck to a resolutely no-litigation-friendly topic (unless I get sued by Rice Krispies manufacturers for defamation of their packaging).

Yoghurt is my own. Yes, I did get sticky fingers.

(Tunes! Today it's a rather splendid mashup project, featuring the songs of Within Temptation, called "Mixed Temptations".)