Tag Packaging

Laws of Nature, Naturally

Michael 1 Comment
There are only two things in life you have to do … die and pay taxes, hahahaha! How many of us have heard that tired line how many times? Actually one of those things you really don’t have to do. Are you tired of pledging a part of your income in taxes? As of last month there are 15 countries you can move to with no personal income tax*. Remember than the next time you feel the urge to complain about being gouged by the government. As for the dying part of the grand equation, well, yeah that is something you can put on your bucket list and be sure of accomplishing.
 
Don’t think though that because we’ve eliminated “paying taxes” on the things you must do list that we are down to a single item. There are the laws of nature that neither man nor beast can circumvent. That saying should go “there are only about 3,845 things you have to do” but I’ve often been accused of hyperbole so maybe not that many. But more than two.
 
For instance, you must march along with time. We cannot stop time and until we sign a treaty with the Vulcans sometime in the 23rd century and they share their vast knowledge of astrophysics we won’t be able to slingshot around the sun and go back in time either. However, thanks to the efforts of retail marketing experts we can expand time. Proof is that one day sales now routinely happen over a full weekend and a single day (Cyber Monday) can last a whole week and another (Black Friday) now takes up almost what was once an entire month. Although marketers have been improving the concept, the idea of time expansion is not new and was first developed by the United States government with the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1975 which stretched paltry 24 hour celebrations of key historical events over 3 days eliminating those pesky workdays between weekends and an extra day off for the holidays that had the nerve to land on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday in certain years. 
 
An immutable law of physics is the conservation of matter which states that mass is a constant which cannot be created nor destroyed, but it can change shape or form. This is especially well documented around the holidays when the goodies on that Christmas cookie tray change from the shape of a Santa on his sleigh to the shape of your ever growing midsection. This law also governs why post New Years Resolution diets fail. You can eat all the celery you want but a pound of vegetables is still a pound and when you gobble it up that pound must be reformed into something else, most likely your waist.
 
ChristmasLights
Some things, again most noticeable during this holiday season, seem to defy this law. It is well documented that any new set of Christmas tree lights once removed from their package and placed on the tree then removed from the tree at the end of the season expands in size and never fit into the original packaging again. If matter cannot be created from where is this excess stuff transferred? I suggest you take a look at some of the most common chocolates you fill those Christmas candy dishes with. Those pound bags of colorfully wrapped Hershey’s Kisses are steadily shrinking, this year down to a trim 11 ounces. They aren’t the only ones who suffer when lights, garland, and even extension cords outgrow their storage cartons. Even the niche traditional candies are being downsized in a heroic effort to maintain the conservation of matter. The Italian delight LaFlorentine torrone is down to boxes of 7-1/2 ounces and Terry’s chocolate oranges once a proud half pound now weigh in at a hair over 6 ounces.
 
The other constant in life may be noticed only by fathers with children getting their first bikes this Christmas but is valid year round and is not gender exclusive. That is a new law of nature, the law of actual assembly time (LAAT). This applies to all toys with the back of the box fine print “some assembly required” as well as to DIY home improvement projects and with appropriate extrapolation, to luggage retrieval times at airports with more than one gate. The LAAT states to determine the actual assembly time multiply the given estimate by 3 and adjust with an additional 5% for every tool required, known as the tool locating variable. (For luggage retrieval substitute “TSA approved lock used” for “tool required.” If locks are not TSA approved actual retrieval time approaches infinity).
 
So you see there are more absolutes than death and taxes, even in The Bahamas.
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*Countries with no personal income tax, in case you are planning a big move sometime in the future. (You probably will notice some of these places are potential paradises while others don’t get so high a AAA travel rating. Of the most desirable places what you save on taxes may end up going to buy a quart of milk. Probably another one of those absolute laws –  The Law of You Get What You Pay For.)
 
Bahamas
Bahrain 
Brunei
Cayman Islands
Kuwait 
Maldives 
Monaco
Nauru 
Oman
Qatar
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Somalia 
United Arab Emirates 
Vanuatu 
Western Sahara

Do You Smell What I Smell

Michael Leave a comment

It all started innocently enough.  All we did was go shopping.  It was then that we wandered into the fragrance aisle.  Not fragrances as in perfumes and colognes but fragrances as in room deodorizers and air fresheners.

Do you know what they’ve done with air fresheners lately?  They look like rocks, they have cunning sniffer inlets, they take oils and liquids, and they’ve turned some into mini-sprayers that plug in or work on batteries.  Electric powered air fresheners, imagine that.

We made our choices and continued our shopping, barely able to contain our anticipation over our new air fresheners.  Well, perhaps not that unable to contain it, but we were looking forward to them.  She of We selected a battery operated one that promised to neutralize bad smells whenever they were detected.  He of We went for esthetics over utility and chose a unit that would go with the décor of his bathroom.  Unfortunately the scent was not the one he really wanted.  He wanted the scent that came with the aforementioned “rock” but looks won out.  Besides, he figured he could correct that when it came time to purchase the refill.

Ah, the refills.  We were so intent on exploring these crafty little units that we didn’t start looking for refills until we had made our selections.  We searched the shelves but couldn’t locate refills for either of our units.  He of We recalled that Child of He had a plug in unit and a refill for that style also eluded them.  There seemed to be no refills at all; that could be why Child’s unit was sitting on her bathroom counter, empty and unplugged.  She of We remembered seeing lots of them in another store and there would be plenty of time to worry about refills.  First we had to get them home and get them freshening! 

And eventually home is where we got them.  First to She of We’s where we finally extricated her new bad smell controller from the hermetically sealed plastic packaging.  Why is everything is now packaged in those devious plastic boxes that only open with the aid of a very sharp pair of scissors?   It wasn’t too many years ago that manufacturers were taken to task because they had too many layers of packaging.  Cellophane wrappers inside cardboard boxes inside plastic over-wraps.  We can see where packaging like that was the absolute antithesis of being green.  But is this new wave of sealed from all evil really the way to go?  Are there that many people wanting to steal a $4.00 air freshener out of its box off a store’s shelf that the shopkeepers have put up the challenge to the manufacturers to make it impossible to get to without first stealing a pocket knife?

But we digress.  Eventually we got them home and eventually we got them out of their packages.  She of We read through the 12 page user guide to her unit while He of We fiddled with the battery case cover and slipped in the required 3 AAA cells.  Within minutes it was perched on the table waiting for a bad smell to counter.  That might not have been when we first thought of it but it was when She of We first put it out there in spoken words.  How does it tell?

Equally eventually He of We got his new freshener unpackaged, loaded with his not so favorite fragrance and settled it onto a bathroom shelf, looking quite like it belong there, part of the ensemble in black.  And not smelling at all like the printed description.  But that was ok since He of We liked that better than what it was supposed to smell like.

And so, Both of We are battling bad smells with the new high tech gadgetry that has become room air fresheners.  And to them we say bring back the Lysol in a spray can.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?