What new products have you had trouble using recently?

I recently purchased a gallon container of green Slime Tire Sealant. $35–40. For the uninitiated, it is a goo that goes in tires to quickly seal leaks or plug pinholes – even rim leaks. It is great for off road SUV tires and tractor tires that might get punctured by roofing nails, or wood pallet edges, or metal angle iron posts or even shot with a 22. I fill my Tahoe 4×4 tires (aluminum rims) with it. I have used single use cans before and they are great but very expensive.

The gallon comes with an internal pump . No matter how hard I tried, that pump did not work. I spent at least 15 minutes taking it apart, cleaning it and putting back together again. I put the whole pump in hot water and soaked it for 10 minutes and then it started to move.
Finally the invisible clot broke free and the stuff pumped into the tire perfectly.
On the container there is a disclaimer/warranty note that states if the pump does not work, do not bring it back to the store. Call a free 800 number and they will replace it.

I fill my dual axle trailer tires with it too.

I had a related problem with a moisturizer-dispensing bottle. I couldn’t turn the nozzle, push it down, or pull it up either.

IIRC, what I eventually had to do was press down on it and then turn it while I was still pressing down on it, much like the way you have to open some vials containing prescription meds.

I wonder what fucking Einstein in the packaging department thought that it was going to be a container for potentially fatal prescription hand lotion. What’s the worst-case scenario for OD’ing on hand lotion- you can’t turn a door knob because you’re suffering from manual over-lubrication?

We just bought a new washer and dryer and my husband had to convert the dryer to propane from natural gas.
He bought the conversion kit but there were absolutely no instructions on how to get to the part to replace it.
Fortunately, my husband is a regular McGyver and can fix anything. He tore the dryer apart and figured it out. It works perfectly now.

It seems to me that food packaging in general is getting harder to open, or at least harder to figure out how to open. Example: There’s a Libby fruit product that you heat in the microwave and then top with a mixture of brown sugar and granola. A cardboard sleeve holds two little tubs, and it’s so tight that you have to pry the tubs out. Each tub of fruit (apple of peach bits) is covered by a hard plastic lid that doubles as a carrier for the topping and the first of two protective coverings for the fruit. Prying this lid off is a nightmare. I’ve cut my index finger twice doing it. Next, you have to peel off a thin but very sturdy plastic second covering over the fruit. It rarely peels off in one piece, so you wind up sticking your finger in the fruit to get the remaining plastic off. And THEN you have to peel off the tinfoil cover under the top lid to release the topping, and the way it’s designed, some of this powdered stuff always falls out before you can put it on the fruit. I’ve decided the product isn’t good enough to make all this work opening it worth it. Maybe my hands are starting to lose strength… but more likely, there’s a Libby packaging designer laughing his ass off.

That’s a case in point for less processed food.

I tried to open an individual bag of peanuts the other day. You can’t tear it with your fingers (like some good products that have that little indentation at the top that gets your tear started) so I had to bite it open with my teeth. Of course the bag didn’t open cleanly across the top, it opened all the way down the front and side of the bag and the peanuts spilled all over my lap. Grrrrrr.

Hand sanitizer dispensers seems to be hit or miss with trying to get the pump nozzle to come up and function properly.

Even though there is a little perforated tab on the box of baking soda, you can push on it all day long and it still won’t open. I always end up having to cut it with a knife, and the hole is never where the perforations actually are. Why do they bother even having the perforations?

Lately, every jar of jelly or spaghetti sauce that I try to open seems to be glued on. I’ve hurt my hands a few times trying to twist them off. I’m always afraid that I’m going to lose my grip and have the glass jar hurdle to the floor and break both the jar and my tile floor. : (

Those blue slide out dispensers that have prescription doses in blisters marked with the days of the week. I find these to be obnoxious. The childproof locking tabs that force you to press down with 2 tons of force to open the slide. Then if that’s not bad enough, when I attempt to pop the pill out from the back, it snaps out and ricochets off the desk and disappears into the floor somewhere. The tab issue I solved by breaking it off so the slide pulls out better but the pill extraction is still a pain. I like my scripts in the little amber bottles. I don’t know if this packaging is new but the first time I got one I knew it was going to be bad news.

I was given a new style, 2 gallon, gas can with all the safety and evaporative emissions protection junk. The thing is so difficult to use you can’t help but overfill the lawn mower and spill the gasoline all over the engine and deck.
So they save 2 grams of fuel vapor to emissions but cause the user to spill 50 grams when they use it. Ridiculous.

My friend gave me the can because he was not strong enough to pull the open lever.