Things that should be easily fixable but never are (lighthearted)

[GunpowderGelatine]

• When Netflix email me with the subject "Gunpowder, we've just added a new series you may like". I think ooh how exciting, click on the email and there's a poster for say, Russian Doll...and that's it. No description. Nothing to say what it's about. The link takes you to Netflix rather than any kind of article or summary. Tell me what it's fucking about!!

• Packets of bacon. Why are they unopenable?! What's even the point of the little corner that lifts up when it just tears off if you pull it?

• every car radio I've ever had. Maybe it's just me. But I feel like I have to press 20 different buttons just to bring up my iPhone music, sometimes I have to turn it off altogether and back on again for the sound to work, and I swear it resets the Traffic Announcement thing that NO ONE WANTS every journey, because I think I've switched it off, I'm singing along to something cool Chesney Hawkes and all of a sudden some bloke is telling me about a traffic jam 250 miles away

• Baby wipes that don't come out one at a time but instead in a big stuck together string. Every time I change the baby's nappy i feel like a really shit magician pulling never ending hankies out of something 🙄

I see your bacon packets and raise you sandwich slices (chicken or pork+egg for example) where the peelable tab comes off! Just the tab though. So now you have hermetically sealed chicken slices.

Heat sealed plastic packaging.

An item comes suspended in hard, clear plastic that looks like it's been sealed with a heated crimper round the outside.

Attacking all the plastic to get the item out of the central bubble it's trapped in usually results in a Stanley knife injury or even getting sliced by the packaging itself.

I will add to the packaging theme - children's toys that are attached completely unnecessarily to packaging with screws and cable ties. It's a toy till that cost £10, Chad Valley, I shouldn't have to be doing some low level DIY!

What about scissors that need scissors to open?

Reusable drinks bottles/cups that don't start to leak after you've washed them a few times.

Loo rolls I always wonder why it so difficult and wasteful to start a new roll, why are they glued down so much!

Fixing leaking taps.
You think you're just replacing a washer, next thing you know you're down at the hardware store buying a whole new faucet

Car headlight bulbs. Pita to change, usually even for garages.

Shoelaces. Difficult to arrange so they're the same length coming out each side, and so that the shoe grips the foot comfortably; and once that bit of plastic round the end of the lace comes off, impossible to re-thread. (Plays netball; trainers tied tightly round the whole foot are essential!)

DVDs: having to go through endless menus to watch the damn thing, skip the adverts, which is sometimes impossible. Back in the day of video cassettes, I used to make a point of rewinding them to just after the adverts at the beginning. I used to do this with hire ones as well.

Re: shoelaces. Replace the laces with elastic. Adjust to your preferred fit, tie off and tuck the knot away neatly.
Then slip trainers on and off. No more threading. HTH

Making an appointment at the doctors.

I’ve had to go to the surgery with photo I’d to get logon details to register. Then I have to go online at 7am to try and get an appointment. Or I could phone at 8am (and never get through). All appointments are generally gone by 9am.

You can ask for an emergency appointment but not everything is an emergency. Sometimes you just have something that needs to be looked at.

@JayeAshe Thanks for that tip, I'll try it with some of my leisure trainers. Wouldn't do for netball though - to avoid sprained ankles, feet have to be securely tied up like prisoners you don't want escaping ever! (How children played netball in those black elasticated plimsolls, I'll never know.)

@wanderings

Also when the aglet (stiff bit) of the shoelace comes off wrapping gaffer tape/insulation/parcel tape around the lace end can fix it. Or if the lace is synthetic the end can be fused over a lit match or tealight

Opening jars... Too tight. Tap them on the worktop. Still too tight to open? Stab the fucker (avoiding hand) in the middle of the lid... Et Voila...

Earphone packets - JVC ones especially . Numerous times I’ve had to buy them in WHSmith for the train and we’re four stops through by the time I’ve managed to open the blasted things .

Also fucking squeezy mayonaisse . Waste of money as half the Mayo sticks to the sides of the bottle no matter how much whacking off the worktop I do . Have resorted to slicing the bottle open before now .

God yes shrink-wrapped packaging. I wanted to make mackerel pate yesterday. Trying to get the mackerel fillets out of their packages nearly had me on the floor weeping with frustration. I had to cut bits off the fish itself in order to get the scissor ends close enough to free them. Utter madness.

My house! Start a job think ah this will be pretty straightforward, is it buggery!

Leaking cisterns. Also, regarding changing headlight bulbs in cars, we had a letter from UK chief of Renault instructing any Renault garage in the UK to chande our megane headlight bulbs after I wrote a stinging letter to him!

And yes to the damned baby wipes, i stuff them back in

I'm with needsleepzzz my garden, went ot rake leaves a few weeks ago, discovered the bag to put them in was full of last year's (now lovely) leaf mould, went ot put that round plants and realised I needed to move a plant first, went to move the plant and it was 4 large plants, took over an hour to dig out and pot up.
a 30 minute job and I was in the garden for 4 hours!