I have a teething dog, and she chewed up my iPhone headphones late last week.  Since I also use a Blackberry for work, I’ve been using those headphones interchangably between the two devices, so not having them has meant my wife suffered through boring technical conversations while I was on speakerphone, since I need my hands to type while I’m on the phone with work.

I asked Dawn to pick me up a new set of iPhone headphones while she was out yesterday, and when I went to open them this morning I couldn’t believe the difficulty I had.  If I was a more dilligent blogger, I would have taken pictures during this process, but (a) I suck and (b) I’m still in PJs with bed head, and I can’t risk those kinds of photos leaking onto the internet.

First – the box.  It’s as sexy as Jobs wants it to be, and like the new Shuffle offers nary a way in.  No convenient flap to open, no partially-scored “press here to open” area – nothing.  Just a hermetically sealed box with no obvious means of entry.  I tried pulling it open at a seam, but Apple glue is apparently pretty strong stuff.  I took out a utility knife and traced a seam, forcing my way into this little cardboard treasure chest.

What came out was a neat white pouch, looking clinical and slightly sci-fi-ish.  There was a seam along the back, which appeared to be a flap that would be lightly sealed so I could simply pull it open and grab my little white earbud beauties.  Not so.  What I had, it seemed, was a mini potato chip bag – the seam along the back was there for me to grasp to facilitate pulling one side open, making the payload inside accessible.  Again, not so much.  The glue from the outside was Post-It Note adhesive compared to whatever sealed this little parcel.  Maybe my fingers are too big or I’m just a wimp, but I had to get my utility knife out again and slice an entry into the bag to get my headphones.

Inside, wrapped tightly and neatly, was a bundle about the size of a half-dollar (kids, back in the day, we had coins slightly larger than a quarter but not as big as a frisbee) that needed unwrapping.  That fell open fairly easily – and I finally had my headphones. If they weren’t $30, we could sell them rather easily in penny candy bins (kids, back in the day, we could buy candy out of little boxes, and could get two handfulls for about one non-frisbee coin) and not have to go through all this boxy nonsense.

And, now that I feel like a hacky 80s stand-up comic complaining about opening a prescription bottle, I’ll go back to my phone calls.