Chinese torture.

Forget Chinese water torture, as a form of punishment from our friends/enemies located in the far east. The new form of punishment for those of us living in this money grubbing, capitalist, democratic society, is Chinese packaging torture.

As a parent you go to the store full of anticipation as to what wonderful toy you can find for your child that will bring him/her hours of enjoyment, and maybe you as a parent a few minutes of peace. After careful consideration you select the toy, bring the toy home, wrap it either for a birthday or Christmas and wait with anticipated excitement to see the look of sheer joy on your child's face as they open this wonderful gift.

The gift is unwrapped, the joy abounds, and then the toy is promptly handed to you with the child saying "Mommy, mommy, mommy, (or daddy), please open this for me." Anxious to allow your child to play with his/ her wonderful new addition to a probably overflowing toy collection, you begin by attempting to remove the toy from the box.

Now generally the toy come packaged as to allow you to see all the pieces parts that come with the toy, so you have full disclosure of what exactly you are purchasing. Well there is the box that the toy comes in and inside that box is a separate box that all the pieces parts of the toy are attached to. The first order of business begins with attempting to separate the interior box from the exterior box. Usually they are connected by tape, and a lot of it. You must locate all places where tape is found and cut the tape connecting the two boxes.

Once the two boxes are separated then you begin to remove the individual pieces parts, which are generally hooked to the box with plastic coated wires that are twisted together. One must be a rocket scientist to first determine which way the ties are twisted, so as to not further twist the ties you are trying to untwist. Tie remove is long, tedious and just when you think you have every tie removed, you find another tie you missed. Meanwhile your child is slowly erupting or in the case of Mark is now at full blown eruption, because they want to play with the toy NOW and don't understand that the toy cannot be simply removed from the box.

This result in a dramatic increase in your blood pressure as you are working as fast as you can to free the toy, in order to calm your screaming child. The child's screaming impedes your ability to focus on the task at hand thereby further delaying the freeing of the toy.

Once the ties are moved generally you will then find these small clear elastic rubber band type things that also connect toys to the box or to other toy parts. Because they are small and clear, they are difficult to see, and you do not notice them until you try to remove a piece of the toy, only to be met with resistance. You must then locate all clear elastic rubber bands and cut them to free the toy.

Finally on some toys you will find a plastic "bubble" that overlays part of the toy with the edges glued to the cardboard package. This must be lifted to free the toy.

After no less than 20 minutes of untwisting, cutting and lifting, the toy with all its pieces parts is FREE. This is what you are left with:

The box showing the remnants of your hard and diligent labor.

And a huge pile of twist ties.

I have decided the manufactures in China have determined the best way to torture Americans, is to package all toys in such a manner that removal from the package is virtually impossible, leaving both parent and child ready to reveal any secret, just to have the toy free, and both needing a good stiff drink once the process is completed.