Working Mum

Picture the scene, you’ve just got back from Toys R Us where the darling daughters have just spent around £30 each which has been given (or perhaps that should be extorted) from various grandparents and great aunts and uncles on a selection on Disney Princess (for Ami) and In the Night Garden (for Izzy) stuff.

Obviously the girls want to play with the toys as soon as possible and so we run around, get the scissors out and attack the packaging. It is at this point it all goes wrong.

Plastic packaging sealed against a possible doomsday threat, wire tires that don’t untie but will attempt to slice your fingers without a moments thought, enough cardboard to fill several pink recycling bags plus various plastic tags, bits of sellotape and bubble wrap engulf us.

An hour later (OK not really but it feels like it) we are still attempting to free the toys. The lounge is awash with packaging and every tool known to man as we gallantly slice, dice, twist, turn, push and pull. Plus the darling daughters are now extremely impatient and starting to whinge ‘I want to play with it!’ whilst trying grab the toys off us.

Now it’s time to get out the heavy artillery: box cutters, screwdrivers, ice picks, sheet-metal shears and perhaps a hacksaw or two, for good measure.

The final straw is a bit of wire in IgglePiggle’s foot that just will not budge meaning Izzy cannot play with it.

Aaarrggghhhhh!!!!!! I can’t stand it any more and I succumb to ‘Wrap Rage’.

Suddenly I’m entertaining fantasies about using the Stanley knife, which has just nearly sliced my thumb off, to slit the throat of the person who designed the packaging.

And it can only get worse with Christmas approaching. Freeing the toys, electronics and other gifts of the holiday season from their bulletproof packaging is clearly going to require the strength of Superman, the manual dexterity of Beast and the patience of a saint.

We thought about not buy the kids any presents, therefore removing all packaging problems, but they get presents from other people so this is not really a solution. Perhaps there are more suitable /power tools we can buy, as my husband says ‘There’s no such thing as too many power tools.’ Or perhaps we hide on Christmas day and leave the present opening to the grandparents.

What do you think? Any suggestions on how to avoid or overcome wrap rage?

Anyway, here’s a very early ‘Wishing you a very merry Christmas. And don’t get hurt opening packages…’

P.S. We did finally get the bit or wire out of IgglePiggle’s foot using the tried and trusted technique of using our teeth. Not exactly health and safety conscious but it does work.