Remember When...

Remember when you used to be able to open a medicine bottle without an owner's manual, or take a hair dryer out of a box by pulling out one little end-flap?
Jeez, there are obstacles everywhere we turn. Why do they make things so difficult? Not to mention all that industrial-strength plastic that's flooding our landfills.

Check out the packaging for Walgreen's brand face cream. Can you say overkill? I'm not going to eat it. I just want these wrinkles to disappear. What danger could be lurking if they simply screwed on the lid and plopped it on the shelf? Why do I need the jaws of life to get through all that heat-sealed plastic?
This packaging craze goes back to the Tylenol poisonings in the 80s, when someone laced the over-the-counter drug with potassium cyanide and seven people died. Okay, I get that we needed to make sure drugs weren't accessible and tamper-able, but face cream?
I bought a combination hair dryer/curling iron the other day (a whole 'nother subject) and it took twenty-three minutes to get to it. Is that necessary?
Okay, I'll jump down off my soapbox now and get back to trying to figure out how to get my new Kindle Fire (so excited!) out of that damn box. They should provide instructions in four languages just for the packaging.