Cut to the Chase

One year, I don't remember exactly when, I bought me Grandpa Joe a carpet knife for Father's day or his birthday or something. He called it a hawkbill knife, because it looked like the beak of a hawk. He loved it, but my aunt living with him and me Grandma Cosgriff, hated it. "He opens everything with that knife," she lamented.

Fast forward to yesterday. I bought myself a little snack at a truck stop, and dagnabbit, I could not get that thing open. It was some sort of vacuum sealed plastic and it would not tear open despite having a notch of sorts which was intended to allow easy access. I surely looked like an idiot, sitting in my van and pulling and yanking on that package, trying to get it open by biting it with my teeth or piercing it with an old key. And I recalled Joe and that hawkbill and thought, I want to get me one of those and keep it on me at all times.

You see, Joe had tired of trying to open things with brute force. Especially when formed plastic packaging came about, it became tough to simply rip things apart. So he used a knife to get around that. And by gosh, that's my plan for the future. Get a knife and absolutely destroy the protective packaging.

I think my aunt hated it because of the debris trail Joe's package-opening typically left, and I get that. But after yesterday, I'd rather have more to clean up than fight simply getting something into the open air.  

On the plus side, I may have burned all the calories I consumed in getting to my snack.