Grandma Proof

One of the advantages of youth is the ability to open childproof containers.

I have never met a kid who couldn’t. I just spent five minutes trying to open a simple plastic card of AAA batteries. It even had an ‘open here’ place. But I knew better. 

If possible I don't step up to the opening of any container without a kid within pleading range. Frequently grandchildren will look up from Minecraft to respond to grandparently distress signals. Especially if accompanied by their favorite brownies.

Without them I have to use scissors or screwdrivers. I don't dare put what’s left of my teeth in peril just to open a parcel. USPS delivers only packages bound with that tape that has steel threads running through it. Sometimes even a pair of scissors isn’t strong enough.

Soup cans have only one end that accepts a simple can opener. The other one is rounded and impenetrable. Or has an easy to use pop-top thing. Sure.

Opening seltzer bottles requires herculean strength in my opinion and by the time I do get one opened, I have forgotten that seltzer fizzes all over the place while I am yelling “I got you open you wretched excuse for a bottle…” by that time I am soaked.

I could go on with a litany of impossible jars, medicine containers, tea packets and even ketchup bottles, which have been made impervious to blood, sweat and tears. Is this in the name of safety? I wonder if those manufacturers are all childless. Don't they know how marvelously clever and nimble young fingers are?

Are they so afraid of hearing that “Oh grandma, here let me do it” that they have never tried these gizmos out on a panel of expert ten year olds?

On the other hand, if these things really were childproof, everyone would be starving, unmedicated and thirsty. Better they don't know.

So far I have not dealt with the importance of grandchildren in the electronic age. This need for assistance with one’s computer has come to outrank the need for help in opening things.

There is a commercial running on TV now, showing a pair of grandchildren being greeted not by grandparently kisses, but by a pile of dead electronics. In my opinion, the grandparents aren’t properly grateful. I mean we don't want to alienate our little saviors.

Computers are getting more and more complicated in the name of identity theft. Soon even children won’t be able to open them.

Electronics will be so hacker proof that only the hackers will be able to get into them. I wonder how old those guys are? And if they like chocolate chip cookies.