Windmills of my mind
Freezer bags. What's that all about?
I was making Small Person's packed lunch for school tomorrow (I caved to the teacher's request that she be allowed to have a packed lunch one day a week - the inference that if she didn't she would be peerless and friendless was too much to bear....), when a thought struck me. It's not freezer bags as such. I understand the concept. That's all fine. It's the little wire closure thingies that they put in every roll of freezer bags. It just sort of got me thinking.
I don't use the little wire closure thingies. I'm not that sort of person. I'm the sort of person who rips a bag of frozen peas open with their teeth, then spends the next five weeks picking frozen peas off the kitchen floor as they spill out of the freezer in torrents owing to the huge, ragged gap in the corner of the bag that I have failed to reseal. So based on this, it's not too surprising that I don't use the little wire closure thingies that come with the freezer bags. I tie a knot in the bag instead. It's just easier. And then when you want to use whatever-it-is, you just rip the bag open and if it's bolognaise sauce, or curry, or a placenta or something (don't ask) you end up with it all over your hands and then the remains of the bag drip all over the floor on the way to the bin. So, it's easier. Um. Anyway, to sum up, I don't use the little wire closure thingies that come with the freezer bags. And I started thinking - does anyone use them? Anyone at all? I don't think they do. But they come with the freezer bags. Regardless of the fact that nobody uses them, and that they just languish in the obligatory Kitchen Drawer of Crap until you move house and throw them away. And the implications are huge.
Somewhere, there's a factory that produces the little wire closure thingies. It has a managing director, who has a secretary. There are floor managers, maintenance staff, people who run the little-wire-closure-thingy machines. There are cleaners, and packers, and drivers, and all sorts of people. All of them turn up for work for forty or so hours a week. All of them get paid. They get paid, and spend their working lives producing an item that nobody uses. Seriously. Sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la la, my entire career is a fallacy as nobody uses the little wire closure thingies that come with the freezer bags, and if I tell anyone we'll all lose our jobs so the conceit is that we offer a valid service and it'll be fine" on that sort of scale is impressive. And now I feel like blowing the whistle, only I wouldn't know where to start. And if I did, then I would have to live with the fact that I had ruined lives and fractured families and that children would be going to school in the wrong sort of trainers and being bullied for it because their dad got laid off from the little-wire-closure-thingie factory because someone exposed the business as irrelevant and unnecessary, and I wouldn't want that on my conscience.
So I'll probably just leave it. Makes you think* though, doesn't it?
* Just me then. Right.
I was making Small Person's packed lunch for school tomorrow (I caved to the teacher's request that she be allowed to have a packed lunch one day a week - the inference that if she didn't she would be peerless and friendless was too much to bear....), when a thought struck me. It's not freezer bags as such. I understand the concept. That's all fine. It's the little wire closure thingies that they put in every roll of freezer bags. It just sort of got me thinking.
I don't use the little wire closure thingies. I'm not that sort of person. I'm the sort of person who rips a bag of frozen peas open with their teeth, then spends the next five weeks picking frozen peas off the kitchen floor as they spill out of the freezer in torrents owing to the huge, ragged gap in the corner of the bag that I have failed to reseal. So based on this, it's not too surprising that I don't use the little wire closure thingies that come with the freezer bags. I tie a knot in the bag instead. It's just easier. And then when you want to use whatever-it-is, you just rip the bag open and if it's bolognaise sauce, or curry, or a placenta or something (don't ask) you end up with it all over your hands and then the remains of the bag drip all over the floor on the way to the bin. So, it's easier. Um. Anyway, to sum up, I don't use the little wire closure thingies that come with the freezer bags. And I started thinking - does anyone use them? Anyone at all? I don't think they do. But they come with the freezer bags. Regardless of the fact that nobody uses them, and that they just languish in the obligatory Kitchen Drawer of Crap until you move house and throw them away. And the implications are huge.
Somewhere, there's a factory that produces the little wire closure thingies. It has a managing director, who has a secretary. There are floor managers, maintenance staff, people who run the little-wire-closure-thingy machines. There are cleaners, and packers, and drivers, and all sorts of people. All of them turn up for work for forty or so hours a week. All of them get paid. They get paid, and spend their working lives producing an item that nobody uses. Seriously. Sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la la, my entire career is a fallacy as nobody uses the little wire closure thingies that come with the freezer bags, and if I tell anyone we'll all lose our jobs so the conceit is that we offer a valid service and it'll be fine" on that sort of scale is impressive. And now I feel like blowing the whistle, only I wouldn't know where to start. And if I did, then I would have to live with the fact that I had ruined lives and fractured families and that children would be going to school in the wrong sort of trainers and being bullied for it because their dad got laid off from the little-wire-closure-thingie factory because someone exposed the business as irrelevant and unnecessary, and I wouldn't want that on my conscience.
So I'll probably just leave it. Makes you think* though, doesn't it?
* Just me then. Right.
posted by surly girl at 5:55 pm
31 Comments:
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
You blogrolled me!
I understand the temptation to keep the little twisty things and for a long time I did, but now I just throw the little twisty things in the bin and feel much better for it. Join me!
I use them, but only because I lose every packet of Klippets I buy from Lakeland. Yes, I am sad. And yes, I have frozen peas welded to the bottom of the freezer, despite using the wire thingies. Stray frozen peas come from the other universe in exchange for odd socks.
I use them. Sometimes.
*coughs embarrassedly* Err, I use them. Although I do currently have an open bag of something in my cupboard which I have fastened using a hair grip.
My mum's still got some twisty wire thingy's from c.1977 alongside the 1965 edition A-Z which she still insists on using and some playing cards we got out of a cracker when I was approx. 8 (ie: a VERY long time ago)in the kitchen drawer. I know they will still be there when I have to clear out her house when she dies. Jesus Christ - we never used them in 1977 - why oh why does she still keep them?
PS: I always make my SP's packed lunch each morning - am I an idiot?
I use those klippy things (or as we scientists know them as: dialysis clips), and don't actuallly buy freezer bags with those wire tie things - Lakeland don't seem to supply them with their marvellous "fruit" bags. Probably in an attempt to sell more of those klippy things. My mum uses them though - the wire tie thingies, but only because they're free.
I had to defrost the freezer recently (it was getting so the door couldn't be shut so it had to be done) Scattered on the bottom of the freezer were a large number of peas.
I do use one of the wire thingies on my coffee though, oddly.
Really should clean the fridge-again (hate that).
I've become a bit of an addict of the American zip-lock freezer bag. The other way to go here is the 'brown bag lunch' which is, er... your lunch in a brown paper bag. Now I'm feeling peckish.
hell yes, I use them.
for gardening.
great for tying back plants.
but on freezer thingies? thats what bread sacks are for. right? you double the torn up origional bag in a crumby old bread bag that obscures the identity of the item so you forget you have it and when you open it up several months later, you have something that looks like it fell off the Iceman.
I use them and I *like* the idea of an entire factory and all its staff generating useless items just for me.
I actually buy garden twine to do up bags of frozen veg, and, er, other stuff in bags. There's not enough give in a bag of peas to tie a not in them.
Plus it's useful for me clematis and honeysuckle! My life in the house or garden would be empty and devoid of purpose without it!
Yup, Gardeners Question Time be here. They are the most useful garden appliance there is. I used some yesterday to fix a broken bird feeder (ravaged by my nemesis the squirrel). Incredibly useful outside, just absolutely no use in the freezer.
I use bulldog clips to seal stuff in the fridge!
Um, i use them... But they don't come with freezer bags in the states.
They come with boxes of trash bags (bin bags?) and then stay in a drawer for 20+ years.
Also - called "Twisty-Ties" here.
So important, they have a name.
I don't even tie a knot. I just spin and spin and spin and then tuck the tail under.
It does not work very well.
This has been pointed out to me on more than one occasion.
This does not deter me.
For frozen veggies, if I only use half a bag, I'll stretch the opening a bit, enough so I can make a slip knot. It helps to keep the veggies under control and off my floor.
I'd just like a little chat about the placenta please.
I can't believe your blogging about fucking freezer bags. Jeez!
Anyway (fave word), we don't use those tie things either. We're modern pooves and use those ones with the little zip.
Rainbow coloured of course.
I use them. So sue me.
I buy green garden twisty things because they are longer than the tiny little white twisties.
..and then I use them on my frozen peas and I am a happy woman and my ice-monster is pea-free.
I too would like to chat about the placenta.
is there a story about placenta?
cause if there is, i would be quite interested, too.
Did you see the River Cottage programme where they fried up a placenta and ate it for breakfast, Yum Yum!
We don't have a freeezer - now I feel guilty as hell about the mogul family.
my sister gave me a birthing book that told about the hippies eating the placenta after the baby was born. was that they type of thing you hippies did Tom?
"They get paid, and spend their working lives producing an item that nobody uses."
Who was it that requested Small Person pack a lunch? Oh, that's right, her teacher . . . .
Are they the same as pipe-cleaners?
Which my non-smoking family had hundreds of growing up. They're also rubbish at cleaning other sorts of pipes.
Particularly guttering.
I stopped using wire closures (I adore the name so, I'm writhing in delight at being able to use it) because I was so afraid of becoming dependent on them in a world that I was sure was turning away from them.
This post has confirmed this terror.
Oh and that thing with the peas. Yes. I do exactly that thing with the peas.
Are you ever tempted to cook up the roaming peas? A year loose in the freezer drawer makes them a little powdery.
But at least I got to say 'wire closures' a couple of times.
I too use the wire closures (thanks, jvs) for gardening and wooden clothes pegs for keeping frozen peas in bags.
I wonder if anyone who works in that wire closures factory has read this post and had a nervous breakdown?
P.S. I don't care about the placenta. Thanks, though :)
Tescos do a good sort of bag with a whole in it that you just poke the end in and it stays closed! Please do tell about the placenta
only if you tell a) who you are and b) how that bag works....
that was the funniest thing i have read in a long time! esp the factory bit. I do the tear-the-bag-spray-food-all-over-the-place thing.
No freezer is complete without a scattering of loose peas on the bottom.
I listened to a whole programme about people eating placentas on our 9 hour journey to Lancaster.
There was one woman who had a *placenta party* and all her friends came and shared it. She said it was full of happy hormones and made them all giggle a lot.
Isn't all that earth magic stuff wonderful?
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