My very stiff & sore fingers have a tough time with screw caps and many of the RX containers. Most packaging certainly isn't designed for arthritic seniors. I love Amazon Prime but some of their packaging is very hard to open.
I hate the semi-hard plastic, thermally sealed, blister packs. I do have a ritual I go through to avoid becoming one of the thousands of folks who land in the emergency room, each year, with severe lacerations from trying to open those things. I put a new blade in one of my box cutters, lay the new package on a piece of corrugated cardboard on my cement garage floor, and then carefully slice open the package. The can opener method sounds good, but flat-out has never worked, for me.
You can buy special cutters to open those hard plastic packages but what irritates me is the message that says '' attractive brand new package, same great price." They don't tell you that the contents of the attractive new package contains 14.5 oz. of product rather than 16 oz. that was in the old packaging.
I had the most frustrating time trying 'fold and pull' tabs on the Claritin D that I just grabbed the scissors and cut it open.
I have scissors in every room for easy opening. Plus I re package some things from the store so they are easier for us to open.I use pliers to open knobs on creamers and etc when needed. I find this helpful and keeps me ole blood pressure in tact
I have the Ultimate, Ultimate package opener . It works with ANY type of package, and I never have even a little frustration. I have @Bobby Cole , and he opens all of the packages we get, and helps with stuck jar lids. I just take it to him and say “Jane need Tar-zan”, and he immediately figures out how to get whatever it is open.
As Yvonne said, no worries at least concerning opening stuff. What aggravates me is when I get a box of something that I have to put together and then have to repack the box if I want to send it back. The parts mysteriously change their shape or size after unpacking because they sure do NOT fit when I attempt to put the parts back in the box. The thing is, I’m freaky about puzzles and can normally solve anything I come across but repacking some box that came all the way from China and undoubtedly was put together by some underpaid individual who can’t do anything BUT pack boxes gets me nearly every time.
My problem is basically with the stuff they use to hold cereal...The glue sometimes is like Gorilla glue and the bag shreds when I try to open it. I'm good with a very sharp knife for the other kinds of packaging.
If I use one of those the cereal will be all over the floor. I used to have a Finish made fishing knife that apparently went lost when we moved. I used to carrythet in it's sheaf all the time.
I use scissors on those cereal bags, and usually end up pouring the cereal into a plastic tupperware thing. Seems like there aren't as many of the hard-shell "bubble pack" things these days, or else I'm just not buying the right products.
Idiot Maine legislators passed a law banning the use of plastic grocery bags, seemingly as a way to prevent plastic from clogging the oceans or some dumb crap like that, and the Portland City Council banned plastic straws because they couldn't keep Portlanders from shoving the straws up turtles' noses. It was kind of a sport in Portland, I guess. For reasons unknown to reasonable people, retailers are required to charge five cents apiece for paper bags, as well. God only knows what nefarious things turtles were up to with paper grocery bags, but we'll charge them for it here in Maine. Yet, ineffective paper straws generally come wrapped in plastic for sanitary reasons, and you can't buy anything that isn't sealed in sometimes multiple layers of plastic, often hard plastic that is very difficult for people with arthritis, in particular, to remove; and sometimes the product is damaged in the process of removing the plastic. Due in large part to price and convenience, justified by the five-cent charge for bags as well as the previous mask requirements, I began buying pretty much everything I need online, with the exception of spoilable groceries, given that AmazonFresh is not available here. But everything I get comes wrapped in multiple layers of plastic and plastic tape, packed into boxes filled with styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. For some reason, turtles never shove that stuff up their noses. What sense does it make to force people to use reusable cloth bags and paper straws when everything we buy is packed in a ton of plastic and styrofoam?
My pocket knife is usually adequate but for the really tough ones, we have a special pair of snips that make short work of most anything. Not tin snips but about one step down from it.