I figured it out.
Plastic bags originated on the planet Krypton.
Well, maybe not the individual bags. But the material itself? Invulnerable.
To be clear, I’m not talking about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or microplastics, or those six-pack rings that strangle baby turtles.
Rather, it’s plastic packaging.
Seriously. Try and open one with your fingers. Yeah, Superman can do it. But me? Nah.
I tried to open a premade salad today. Worked up a pretty good appetite before I threw in the towel and made for the scissors. (It took two pair. The first didn’t seem inclined to cut the stuff, either.)
Just because it’s possible to make a plastic bag that cannot be opened by anyone other than a professional wrestler doesn’t mean bags should be made that way. Fanaticism, it’s said, consists of redoubling one’s effort when one has forgotten the aim.
See, I’d thought the aim of wrapping things in plastic might have something to do with the consumer. But I guess that’s 20th-century thinking, and we’re two decades (and change) over that.
Yeah, it’s absolutely a first-world problem. Or whatever world Krypton is.
Oh, well. Somewhere in my junk is a piece of kryptonite.