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The Galloping Geezer

Jack Downey Comments on Canadian Issues

Jack Downey ~ The Galloping Geezer
Photo by Julie Ann Biggs



Is any one listening and, if so, to WHOM, WHERE and to WHAT about wasted festive packaging and Christmas FIRE BELLS ringing?

No matter where you go in the world today, some one is trying to sell you something that is grossly over priced and, often, of rather low quality. Huge numbers of people are employed to examine raw products with the object of packaging them in such away that you, the buyer, will think you are getting a lot of useable material and not just cardboard and plastic in flashy colours hiding a cheap piece of junk. These "Merlin" the modern day Market, Magicians are very successful in turning lead into gold. Their argument "Let the Buyer Beware" was reasonably fair before the invention of shrink-wrap plastics. These inventions of a plastic are so strong that you cannot open a CD with out a tool kit and a College degree in Depackaging for Survival. To open a five-cent chocolate bar (Now $1.25), you need teeth like a Beaver to get inside the package, where the "candy" rests on a big sheet of cardboard. There is your grubby little chunk of sugar and fake flavours. Yes, you are right, it does tell you, in small print how many grams of candy you're getting. They are "Selling the Sizzle not the Steak" in marketing talk. Have you ever seen a kid go by a candy slot machine with out wanting to pay $1.00 for a one or two cent candy?


Adult candy is found at the Electronics and Computer centres. Here are displays by master marketers of packaging that makes the packaging of Pharaoh Tutankamen look pretty flaky. I do believe that electronics and computer stuff is prepared by the descendants of the Egyptians, those who worked in the City of the Dead preparing the gentry for their movement across the dark river to the after life. A Mummy and a PC is much the same, both are dead and very expensive. They are wrapped in many layers of material and require a considerable number of assistants to be attached for service in after life. The Mummy and the PC with their many slaves and assistants can certainly do and tell you a lot once you get them out of their wrapping and breath life back into them. Or so say the believers in the Sun God Ra.

The opening of King Tut's tomb has proven the Egyptologist to be wrong in their interpretation of all the Pyramids and tombs built along the Nile. The reason for the Pyramids and Tombs were to store the wrappings and other packaging material that comes with the Mummy. Our present day suppliers of goods have not as yet got us to build Pyramids to store the wrappings of our Electronic and Computer equipment in, but this is coming. You scoff? Well, scoff not! Your Computer, TV etc. all are sold to you wrapped in plastic, Styrofoam, bubble plastic and heavy cardboard dividers, jammed into a huge box that could serve as a nursery to a herd of elephants. The box is taped shut in such a manner that you need a chain saw to open it. After pulling out copious items that are space fillers and redundant to the function of the item you find a small package called "Instructions", this item is to be read only after you have damaged something or the smoke stops coming out of the back of one of the peripherals. After the Fire Fighters have arrived at your place, one of them is sure to hook up the item in such a manner that you can play with it without life threatening results which could cause you to call 911 again!

Now is the time to open the plastic envelope with the instruction book SEALED in it. A propane torch will melt the plastic but is not recommended if you have an electric carving knife.

Book in hand you find that you have most of the listed parts. The assembly instructions are in three or four languages and the one you understand best happens to be English. There is usually something wrong and the English is "SMENGLF" (i.e. a mixture of Spanish, Moroccan, English, Newfie, German, Laplander and French)! Whoever translated these instructions certainly did not understand that Canadians may speak SMENGLF, but we do not read it. Hence, we go by trial and error. BUT worry not, Friar Tuck. Before you and Little John beat the device to bits with your staves, look at this! It doth say, " If you are not satisfied with the item's performance in the next Thirty days or it fails in the next Three months you can return it." A bigger BUT! You must ship it back in its original packaging. This rule also applies if repairs are required over the 2 year (bought extra) warranty.

Now this is where your personal Pyramid or Tomb comes into the modern Electronic Era. This is only one of the "ORIGINAL" packagings you must store away awaiting the day that you will need to ship its occupant for servicing. When trouble comes, you may find that some of the packing material was used to send something to someone somewhere else. Perhaps the box for the PC Screen went to the summer cabin with the clean sheets and was left there in error. It is like the Grave Robbers in the Valley of the Kings are at work today snatching our valuable ORIGINAL packaging. Obviously, a basement or garage is not enough protection with today's mass ownership of electronics wrappings. I walled off three-quarters of my basement and installed a Bank vault-locking door. Packed in there are box after box of dividers, plastic bubble wrap and instruction books. I'm sure that the system would have worked, except for one oversight. I did not obtain all these items in a block lot; they were acquired over a long period of time. The items and boxes should have been coded and dated. Now, to return an item, I have to take all the boxes out into the back yard from my vault and then start sorting through Styrofoam holders, dividers, bubble wrap, instruction books and "leftover".

I once sent something back in a box with a different maker's logo on it. I clearly had carefully over-wrapped it and had addressed it correctly. Lo and behold, the original supplier would not accept the item due to improper wrapping material. It seems also that when they make the item, it is one item per one box with packing. There are no spare boxes! I phoned customer service in Newfoundland (Wallmart has its Customer Service there.) Only after foaming at the mouth and rolling around on the floor, did I get permission to take the item back to the local store for replacement, without any wrapping. At the local Wallmart, I explained my tale of woe and received another Rice Cooker, but I was warned to never cook anything but rice in this device again and to always keep the wrappings. This was not totally correct, as one of the few books of directions I have read is the one for this rice Cooker and it clearly states (and not in Smenglf) that "You can do great Pea soup and stews as long as you keep the original box with the ORIGINAL recipes on it, other wise you will be punished by some one in Canton China who has the Original copyright on the recipes.

The GREAT PACKAGING (holiday) SEASON is approaching. Listen to your Fire Fighters, closely. If you want to keep all this junk and you do not have a Pyramid or Tomb dug in solid rock, get one. You cannot keep all this ORIGINAL packaging in a standard house or apartment. Fire Fighters know how to make electrical things work, so call their non emergency number early to get advice getting these electronic circuits to work safely. EMS and Fire Fighters would rather respond to a SMENGLF translation call than a house full of Flaming Original packing.

In absolute reality, the holiday season can be a wonderful time, but it can be a horrible disaster if you or your children suffocate or are burned to death. Fire Fighters can be, and have been, killed attempting to save those who, because they cannot understand SMENGLF, overload circuits or whose highly flammable packing goes up in flames. Teach your children and, as a family, drop by your local fire hall and have the children give the Fire Fighters some cookies. Santa may come down the chimney but Fire Fighters would sooner stay at the Fire Hall and wait for Rudolph the Red Nosed Fire Prevention Reindeer to drop by and share the cookies when the delivery work is all done.

WE ARE RESPONSABILE TO ENSURE OUR EMS PERSONEL AND FIRE FIGHTERS HAVE A QUIET SAFE FESTIVE SEASON TOO!


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