Be careful: Over-packaging can be fatal
Late one November evening, former Holyoke man, Bob Russell, was found lying on his kitchen floor, his bloodied hands clutching a pair of pliers and a bent-up can of soup. His wife, Judy, sat sobbing silently on her family room couch, following her questioning by the local police.
“Bob finally had enough,” she told the cops. “He had issues for years and years concerning the maddening experiences of trying to open often-impenetrable packages of food. He finally couldn’t take it any longer — and, screaming horrible obscenities, his sanity left him. His eyes bulging out, he suddenly clutched his chest and collapsed on the kitchen floor, dropping the can of mushroom soup he was trying to open with a pair of pliers and a tree saw.”
She explained that, while living in Arkansas, “Bob often had a supportive neighbor come over when Bob couldn’t get some box or can open to allow me to prepare dinner. One of his worst nightmares was trying to open cereal boxes. First, he ended up tearing up the cardboard top, trying to pull it apart and retain the little tab-in-slot “system” that would allow closing and opening the box during further use. He got to where he would grab for a pair of scissors and simply cut the top of the box to shreds — sometimes yelling for me to go get the neighbor’s chain saw, swearing that he was going to cut open every cereal box we had in the pantry.”
She added that Bob was maniacal at times and scared her. “I should have sought medical help,” she stammered. “I could tell that Bob was delirious with rage at times.”
Mrs. Russell said that, once Bob ripped open the top of the cereal box (never to be closed correctly again), he would then wrestle with the translucent bag that held the cereal in the box — gripping it and screaming loudly as he tugged and pulled to open just one end of the packaging. Often, the cereal would spill out on the floor, which would enrage Mr. Russell even further.
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