My son's first birthday is next weekend. So is this blog's third birthday, but I'm fairly comfortable no one will be sending Bag and Baggage age-approriate toys. Thank goodness. I've just spent the last hour and a half unwrapping four Tolo toys from Tyler's grandparents, silently fuming the whole time about how I was going to have the Overlawyered folks explain to me exactly what nasty piece of litigation, littered with unspeakably maimed children who had gained access to their toys too darned quickly, had led to the current state of affairs: impossible toy packaging. One TV news program actually held a Can You Open It? contest for parents. As that report reveals, it turns out for a change you can't blame the lawyers. No, toymakers have decided it's necessary from an aesthetic standpoint for their wares to be shackled in intricate packaging bondage. This is not without its price. From the same report:

[Consumer Reporter Liz] Crenshaw
AS THE SHOPPERS RIPPED, ROARED, UNTWISTED AND TORE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE PACKAGING, THE OPINION PART OF OUR STORY WASN'T HARD TO GET AT ALL,

Do toy packages frustrate you in any way?

Consumer
Very much so.

Crenshaw
Tell me about it.

Consumer
Because when you open the toy package and you want to get the toy out, It takes about 30-40 minutes to get the toy out, and I want to strangle somebody.

Crenshaw
You ever hurt yourself?

Consumer
All the time.

My son when he was about, oh, 6 or 7, he had the hard plastic, and he got it part way opened and then it slipped out of his hand and it come up and cut him across the top of the eye here.

Crenshaw
Oh you're kidding.

Consumer
So he went to the doctors, got some stitches, and that's how we spent our holiday.

Ha! A case of Underlawyering if there ever was one. Who'll join me in me in a chorus or two of "We Didn't Start The Fire?"