Leader of the pack
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
I have often marvelled at packaging - both the excess of it and
those devious minds perpetrating it on us all: from the airline
peanut
packs, which spray peanuts down cleavages within a
four-seat radius
when opened, to those waxed, cardboarded, foiled, plasticised
tetri
packs that a rottweiler on red cordial couldn't tear open even
if it
looked like a tennis ball.
But it's the boxes that appliances come in that intrigue me
most. Be
it a toaster oven, breadmaker or computer, they come in boxes
pretty
much one standard size - which is, conservatively, roughly the
dimensions of Footy Park.
It is a little-known fact that they are also sentient lifeforms.
Once you wedge such a box into your house, it will begin its
complex
and intricate breeding cycle.
First, it spawns cardboard chunks, cut and moulded in such a way
that has little bearing on anything actually in the box - but
which makes
some dandy abstract art. Next, it spurts forth polystyrene in
chunks
impressive enough to be extras in several of the better disaster
movies (if that's not an oxymoron).
Finally, and this requires some abseiling experience, at the
bottom
of the box there lies the hatchery of plastic bags containing
instruction books, warranties, instruction books about the
warranties and
warranties about the instruction books. Which are all entirely
useless because, as we all know, no one ever reads instruction
books because everyone is already an expert by the mere act of buying the
product.
And they sure as heck don't need some darned book to muddy the
waters with annoying details like “How Not to Get Electrocuted”;
“How to
Avoid Blacking Out the Eastern Seaboard and Greater Central
Australia by Turning One Knob”.
Anyway, by the time you are finished, your living room will be
transformed into a winter wonderland of packaging. While
delightful
for the young 'uns, it is a proven fact that a small percentage
of
people never again find the product they pulled out of all that
packaging. They go their lives with eyes glazing over wistfully
when
they recall the microwave they lost in the middle of their
lounge
floor in the polystyrene floods of ’92.
I strongly suspect there is some small heady thrill that comes
with
doing packing for a living.
I say this with a great deal of research under the belt. My very
first job for 9½ months was spent packing very, very little
things into
very, very big boxes. In my case, it was camera equipment - of
which
I knew less than nothing about. (To all those who were
recipients of
my handiwork in the late-’80s, I unreservedly apologise for the
dangerous mix of overkill combined with unbridled creativity.
And I still say
attempting to bubble-wrap a 2m-long wooden tripod one-handed is
the
most fun you can have with your socks on.)
This job required a surprising amount of deep thought on my
part.
For instance, precisely how much packing does one put around a
dozen rolls of film being sent to the Northern Territory?
I do recall being quite panicked by this grave question at the time.
I stared accusingly at the film box for a long while - and
knowing
nothing about the properties of film and whether it would
self-destruct if even breathed on too heavily, I gave it my all. And then some.
It got corrugated cardboard, bubblewrap, a thick box,
brown paper, strapping, the works.
Later, a certain gent in the NT wrote a furious letter to my
boss -
something to do with my overpacked, prohibitively expensive (in
mail
costs) box of film which made his ute lean too much to the left
-
questioning the brain capacity of my boss's “idiot packer” and
wondering aloud about my hereditry.
For some reason, my boss didn't share my creative instincts and
thus
the thrill that went with packing faded shortly thereafter. Pity
- I
still say I had the makings of packing greatness ...
Ah well, now I live vicariously through others.
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser,
04 August 1998.