I long for a simpler time. A happier time, a time when

[HoneyDragon]

They didn't feel the need to shrink wrap cucumbers

Remember those hazy, happy days gone by, where cucumbers frolicked freely in the vegetable aisle and we didn't die from toxic cucumber contamination? I do. I miss them

AIBU?

Am I ?

The grocers in my hometown which had been around for over 100 years had to close down. I always remember going in there with my grandmother to buy plaice and potatoes and parsley (and perhaps some fresh peas) on a Wednesday to make fish and parsley sauce for my breat grandmother's lunch.

I'm very sad it has closed...it was the last one.

Do you remember when chocolate bars were wrapped in waxed paper, not sealed in a plastic one?

Yes. Cadburys was always nicer in foil too.

Oh oh just thought of another one!

Stupid plastic packs, like what un-nice ham comes in.

In tiny writing at one corner, the words

'Peel Here'

Peel here? What, peel at this precise spot you say? Ok, I'll peel here. Oh look! I can peel this plastic back TWO MILLIMETRES. Shall I just grab that butter knife and attack the top like I was planning to do, before I saw your poxy 'Peel Here' message? Shall I do that? Yes I shall.

you should stick to naice ham, noel. Less expensive than the therapy.

I long for the day when I find a cucumber that actually tastes of cucumber and not the nothingness they seem to taste of these days.

Even the organic cucumbers dont taste of proper cucumber like the ones we used to eat as kids.

Yes I know, naice ham from the deli, that comes in a nice non threatening paper bag

I'd still moan about the discs on the salad cream though (I know, I should stick to the jars of mayo!)

Oh those ham packs . Also specially designed so that you can't cover up the ham again so have to fanny about with Tupperware or leave it to dry out in the fridge.

And for my next rage: those clam pack things they use to package odd things like staplers and special lightbulbs. The ones you cannot open at all - you have to stab at it with scissors which gives the packaging a hard sharp edge which you could use to split open the packaging if only you could release the packaging....and all because of the desperate fragility of staplers.

Oh and when medicine came in a jar in a box with some instructions on it. Instead of those horrible double-sided "peel here to read essential life-saving instructions in tiny writing on the back of this label which you cannot unpeel" labels.

Yy Quangle, the bloody clam packs. Although I saw a brilliant tip, which was to use a tin opener on them

Course if its a new tin opener that you're trying to get out of it's packaging, you're screwed.

Does anyone remember when apples and things came without their own little badge? Kiwi fruits have them too.
They are glued on with the Spit of Satan.

And why does EVERYTHING insist that once opened it must be consumed within 3 days? Regardless of whether it is cured, pickled, re wrapped or cryogenically frozen?

fruit and veg in foreign supermarkets (Spain, France, Switzerland)
everything looks brighter, fresher, more vibrant and colourful. I'm sure we get worse quality veg and it can't all be climate as Switzerland isn't any warmer than the uk

I had The Rage in Tesco's yesterday when I saw they have started to put their SINGLE bulbs of garlic into a cunning little plastic bag of netting. They never used to. What can possibly necessitate this?

Single bulbs of garlic? In a bag?

WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS?

I used to think Markses was bad enough, with its four little identical Aryan apples in the little polystyrene tray with the shiny cling film on, but this is ridic.

Ok am going to buy a surplus-to-requirements stapler just to try that tin opener trick.

And YY to annoyance of use-by. Esp for things which are dried or smoked. They are already preserved. Smoked salmon with a 4 day use-by. Obviously this is a posh problem but what the hell is going on with that? And being a middle class ponce I love a sun-dried tomato as much as the next ponce but I'd struggle to get through a jar in three days. Poor me and my smoked salmon and sundries tomato woes.

I can understand the need for shrink wrapping a cucumber, with the wrapping on it can be used in emergency when the batteries die on your favourite vibrating toy, then afterwards the wrapper can be removed, the cucumber sliced and used as a part of your beauty regime and then served to your husband as part of his evening meal.

The cucumber must be one of the most versatile fruits/vegetables there is on the market, all these uses without the fear that it will ever go limp on you.

How the buggery bollocks did the powers that be at Tesco's ever get the impression that their customer base wanted single bulbs of garlic wrapped in plastic netting? SINGLE BLOODY USE PLASTIC??? They tell people to reuse their plastic bags and at the same time bring in things like this, presumably for some ridiculous, groundless and spurious notion of "hygiene". Yes, because everybody eats the outer peel of a clove of garlic don't they? They'll be packaging individual bananas next, you watch.

I spent a long time yesterday trying to get a sink unblocker bottle open. The screw top was like medicine/tablet screw tops but was somehow worse as I can manage them. In the end I turned the bottle upside down and took a knife to the bottom. Sink is now unblocked.

I bought some scissors. The packaging on that needed scissors to open it. Had to use a knife and risk all my fingers. That hard plastic that doesn't bend or do anything

GentleOtter Oh yes, those flippin' fruit stickers! If you don't peel them off the fruit starts to rot in the patch just underneath them.

What about pre-packaged food that goes straight in the oven, that the supermarket has covered in fecking stickers?! I have to spend ages picking the HALF PRICE sticker off my horse meat lasagna

Lawns being mown using a manual lawn mower, the click-click-click-then the zzzzz & repeat until lawn was mown.
The church bells striking the hours on long hot Summer Sunday evenings, while the Collared Doves cooed or in my case more like Pigeons (bloody flying vermin!) and all your friends were still out playing @ 9pm.
Shops closed half a day on a Wednesday*
Clear plastic yellow window blinds in shop fronts.
Sunday baths and getting dried in front of the fire.
The Pop Man coming round/Ski yogurts from the Milkman/The proper rag & bone man/The parrifin man/The coal man/The scissor & knife sharpner man, oh and not forgetting "Johny Onion" either.
Pub opening times (not that I was old enough to drink then).
The adverts on telly.

I could go on, but...DAMN IT JIM! I'M A 40 SOMTHING, NOT A BRICKLAYER.

*other days were available btw

The short, fatter cucumbers are lots nicer than their leggier counterparts IMHO.

What do you mean I had to add something constructive!?