Mark Rutledge: Nothing says Merry Christmas like Â'no assembly requiredÂ'

05.12.09

Consumer reports evidence there will be more assembly required this Christmas morning than ever before. Seems “Santa” can carry more toys on his sleigh if they're unassembled and vigorously packaged.

Well, I'm not buying it. Seriously, if it's not already put together, it can just stay on the sleigh.

Christmas Eve should be a time for sipping eggnog and listening to outstanding carols being put to death by pop artists on the radio. It should not be spent in a cold garage studying instruction manuals printed in three languages, none of which is comprehensible without an engineering exceedingly.

The news of “more assembly required” comes from The New York Times. Retailers' hunger for more shelf space, the Times reports, has driven toymakers to provide their products in more compressed packaging.

How much more compressed can toy packaging become? Freeing pet dolls from their boxes already requires bolt cutters and an acetylene torch.

The Times story offers chilling tales of toy host, including one from a woman whose mind nearly fell apart while she was putting together a SpongeBob Bikini Bottom Adventures Lego kit.

Source: Greenville Daily Reflector