Carol’s Column

When a syringa twig does the job better, use it...

This is a country of remarkable contrasts and I'm not talking wetlands and desert. Have you noticed that the smaller the article the more complicated the packaging?

Last week, two happenings within close proximity of each other brought home the absurd disparities which exist in our consumer world. I bought a toothbrush and then I test drove a very expensive German car.

The toothbrush cost under R10 and came incarcerated in a stiff plastic moulded wrapping which in turn was attached to a hard cardboard base. Careful perusal of the back disclosed instructions on how to brush teeth in order to prevent decay, receding gums, plaque and all the other dreadful things which might invade unsuspecting teeth. But nowhere was there mention on how to extricate the toothbrush from its wrapper.

At first I tried the conventional way of separating the cardboard from the plastic. It didn't yield a centimetre. So I resorted to attempting to push a ballpoint pen - the sharpest implement at my disposal - through the corner of the plastic. It broke the pen. I then tried tearing the cardboard, all to no avail.

This concerted effort to free the toothbrush had so far taken 20 minutes. I did the obvious and placed the toothbrush in its impregnable sheath in my mouth and tried to rip it apart. There was a sharp sound as my tooth cracked but the toothbrush and its covering remained inviolate.

My dentist was unsympathetic. Most severe tooth injuries, he informed me, came either from using teeth to attack biltong or from tearing at various plastic packagings. “I suggest to my patients that in future they use a sharp knife. But by then, it's too late.” He was smiling.

Of course he was smiling. I paid R350 for a temporary filling and was told that it would cost R1 200 to have a cap fitted to my broken tooth.

Meanwhile, the toothbrush was still pristine in its moulded plastic cocoon.

Leaving his surgery, I passed a showroom selling sparkling, extremely highly priced cars.

On an impulse, I entered and was approached by a friendly salesman who, after we had discussed the merits of the various models displayed, suggested I take one for a test drive. Which is how I found myself cruising around in a R300 000-plus automobile which hadn't been wrapped in moulded plastic and didn't take half an hour to activate. I was handed a key and that was that.

He had intended joining me on the test drive but was thwarted by the arrival of a prosperous potato farmer customer from Bethal clearly in buying mode.

Here is the disparity, the contrast. A simple and relatively cheap item such as a toothbrush comes sealed and protected and is almost impossible to liberate from its wrapping while a car, an expensive consumer item, is immediately available. The toothbrush is not user-friendly, the car is. Look around and you'll find a myriad of things incarcerated in anti-customer wrapping.

Jars and bottles impossible to open because of tight plastic seals, bathroom hooks which can't be retrieved from their packaging, kitchen knives encased in thick plastic - the list is endless. Sometimes the struggle becomes too much.

My good friend Betty says she dispensed with toothbrushes years ago. Like me, she believes life is too short to waste time dusting keyholes or stuffing peppers and certainly time is too valuable to spend half an hour on making a toothbrush functional.

Instead, she uses a twig from a syringa tree which is naked and available. It makes a superb toothbrush.

I can only agree.

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