And the winner is Vonage

In case you're keeping score, I enrolled in Vonage last weekend. I chose the $14.99/500 anywhere minutes plan, a savings of $60 a month over my Verizon plan. And I get to keep my own number--maybe. For some reason it takes 10-14 days for Vonage to make the request and change it over.

So I got the Vonage set-up dohickey yesterday, but I was too exhausted after opening the packaging to actually try to hook it up. My Vonage thing-y (the technical term) was encased in the following:

• The well-taped shipping box.
  
  
• A three-color printed cardboard sleeve with some kind of coating covering the actual box. You would think this would slide off easily. It did not. I tried shaking it. Then I thought I'd just rip off the sleeve but it fit so tightly over the actual box that I could barely get a finger between the box and the sleeve. And the sleeve was made out of some kind ot supercardboard that resists ripping. Finally, I freed the box with a complicated shaking and pushing maneuver that I should videotape and sell as a combination cardio/strength training workout.
  
  
• The box itself, a thick carboard number that yielded to an exacto knife.
  
  
• An egg carton-like thing that encased the actual doohickey. This looked deceptively easy to open, but it was hermetically sealed, requiring another aerobic workout to prise the two sides apart.
  
  
• Plastic bags encasing the thingy and the various cables needed to hook up said thingy to my computer. I didn't even bother opening these.

What is it about packaging these days? Yesterday I almost burst a blood vessel trying to open up a bag of prewashed baby salad greens. A scissors saved the day, but I don't remember plastic being quite so unforgiving.