Security breach? Call for the ‘shrink’

I can single-handedly solve our nation’s security crisis. We can shield our airports, shopping malls, and national monuments for good. We can forego the airport security workers who are unable to stay awake long enough to keep anything secure, as well as the roving bands of accountants and car salesmen activated to National Guard duty and forced to guard a bridge in Utah for the past seven months.

How can we solve all our security needs in one fell swoop, you ask?

Simple. We will let the folks who package compact discs take over our nations security.

Tight defense. Seriously. You ever tried to get a CD case open for the first time? Fort Knox isn’t as impenetrable as a brand new shrink-wrap encased compact disc.

The packaging has everything we need for full-scale national defense. First, is the illusion that you have met all visible security measures. At the store, the clerk will dutifully snap off the gigantic plastic “cage,” roughly the size of a Volkswagen, that envelops the CD to prevent shoplifting.

Free of that contraption you feel sure that it’s all smooth sailing and you should be toe tapping to Disco Hits 1977 in no time.

You are oh so naively wrong.

Now you must breach the shrink wrap. You search for a toehold, or fingernail hold as the case may be. Perhaps you are more savvy and are packing a weapon for just this sort of emergency. Knife, box cutter, razor blade, it doesn’t matter.

The average CD shrink-wrap is created with better intellects than the likes of you in mind. You aren’t getting in that easy.

You turn the shiny plastic case this way and that. Certain that there must be some tiny slack in that wrap that will allow you to gain purchase on your purchase. No go.

Finally, you resort to what people since the beginning of time have had to do. You gnaw on it with your teeth. So there you are, chewing furtively on the corner of your disc hoping to grab a mouthful of plastic wrap.

See what attempting to circumvent security has done to you? Already you have sunk to a primordial level. This is probably how cavemen got their CDs open.

Stuck. Having gnawed your way through both the shrink-wrap and a portion of the plastic case housing the compact disc itself, you may experience the momentary delight of having freed your disc from its shrink-prison. Victory!

Too bad the forces behind the protection of compact discs from actual consumer use are not through with you yet. Oh no. Now you must break through the plastic sticker strip that, when secured along the top of your CD case, makes the disc itself impossible to access.

This will really impact your ability to enjoy your music, but on the bright side, you won’t have to worry about wearing that sucker out with your repeat play of The Hustle either.

Have strength. Only very high-tech tools with blades not visible to the naked eye and medical professionals with surgical skills can obtain entry to a sticker secured compact disc without sustaining bodily injury. Otherwise, you can pick, tug, tap, and scrape without success.

Frankly, you can stand on that disc with both feet and pull with all your might but that sticker will hold firm. It’s finesse, not fitness, that counts in these matters.

If, by some fluke, you should happen to gain entry to your CD without cracking the case or your sanity – congratulations. The CIA will be calling you.

In the meantime, let’s forget fortified doors in jets and security forces to guard our nation’s capital. Let’s add a new color to our nation’s Terror-Meter: cello-wrap clear. All we need to foil would-be-terrorists is a truckload of shrink-wrap and some sticker strips.

For added measure, we can equip all airports with child-proof terminals. In a nation for which “push down while turning” has proven a nearly impossible task, no mere terrorist will ever get through.

(Kymberly Foster Seabolt is challenged by both child-proof caps and shrink-wrap. She does, however, welcome tips and reader comments c/o kseabolt@epohi.com or P.O. Box 38, Salem, OH 44460.)