Those packages that encase cables and electronics drive me mad. How are you meant to open them? I end up taking scissors or a knife and trying to slice the plastic across and it just seems to be so impossible to get into. What is up with that?

Oh, God, yeah. And then, having hacked the bastard thing open, you find a leaflet telling you that, should there be anything wrong with it, the shop will only give you a refund if you return it with all the packaging intact.

The packaging for the Mach 3 Power is particularly difficult to get into. Power tools are required.

And if you are not careful how you cut the plastic -- or even if you are, especially in trying to be careful with the knife or scissors you are awkwardly wielding to hack into the thing because of course the plastic is remarkably resilient and resists being cut by even the sharpest of instruments -- when you do get the plastic cut open enough to attempt to pull it apart, it's sharp and ragged enough to cut you.

I mean, who devises these things? How does it save money and serve the consumer? Are we being told we shouldn't have bought the dang thing in the first place by sadistically disgruntled employees?

I suspect, in the case of electronic goods, it might be a crude anti-theft device. But, if you're willing to piss your customers off in the name of stopping thieves, why stop there? Why not force everyone who enters the shop to wear manacles and strip-search them on the way out?