198 Days To Go

      I have a gripe. Actually I have several gripes but tonight I will focus on just one.  Who was the rocket scientist who designed the pull tabs on creamers?  When I was younger I could grip the little foil tab and nicely lift the seal off the artificial cream.  Now as I have gotten older, that little tab seems smaller and no amount of yelling at the tab will give me enough surface area to rip the seal off!
     I'm sure I am not the only one who has problems with these tabs.
     I can see having the child-proof caps on medicine but I have not been a child for some time.  Does anyone care that when I have a headache, I want to get those little tablets out of the bottle as quickly as possible?  I must admit that the mail order pharmacy has finally gotten it right and gives us screw caps for all our medicines.
    My wife and I would probably starve if it was not for the jar handles which allow us to twist the caps off the glass jars with the green mold growing in them. Actually the green mold comes after I put the jar deep into the refrigerator and forget that it is there. My wife keeps telling me to remember that the jar is in there somewhere and I keep telling her I will remember but seldom do.
     Jars holding olives packed in water in a glass jars have some of the worse caps to remove.  There is always a warning on the top that says if the little dimple looks like a hill, then the cap has been loosened and the company can not be held liable.  Not once have I seen a jar of olives with a cap that has lost its vacuum. When I get the jar home from the grocery store,  I give it the old Garroway try  to remove the cap.  I place the cap against my palm and wrap my fingers around the cap.  Then I give it a twist. Nothing.  I give it another twist and still nothing. My palm is now red and my fingers are white.  Then I bring out the big guns and place the handy dandy jar grip with the rubberized  surface over the cap.  Holding the jar in a death grip I turn the handle.  Nothing.  I try to turn the cap the other way.  Nothing again.  I look at the cap and see the arrows pointing in opposite directions.  Tighten this way and loosen that way.
    Perhaps I need to break the vacuum seal on the cap I think to myself. Dropping the jar to the floor would be a possibility but cleaning up glass, water and olives is not an attraction.  I take a knife and turn it around so that I can hammer the edge of the cap.  A couple of quick taps and I try twisting the cap.  Still nothing.  A couple more taps on the other side of the cap and nothing.   I look at the jar of olives and wonder if I really need olives on the salad tonight.
     My wife asks how I'm doing.  I hold up the olive jar with the vacuum sealed cap that will not come off unless I use a charge of C4 and shake my head.  She takes the jar in one hand and the nifty rubberized cap enabler and does one quick twist and the cap comes off in her hand.