Ask General Kang: How do you deal with wrap rage?

Wrap rage, for all my readers who are unfamiliar with the phenomenon, is the rising anger and dementia that you feel when you are unable to open the shiny new thing you have just purchased with your hard-earned cash.

CDs used to be the worst; that pathetic little zip strip does no good at all, and just rips right off, leaving you gnawing at the hermetically sealed package like a Zegtraagian pig beast. And the latest fad in packaging makes that seem genteel.

Last week I bought an “American Idol” Barbie and her packaging was insane. It took me 30 minutes to release her from her plastic clamshell prison. She was wired down, her hair was stitched to the box and she had thick plastic manacles on her arms and torso. It should have been called Petroleum-Product S&M Fetish Barbie.

I’ve got opposable thumbs. Barely. Give me a break people!

But the real evil, the most humiliating adamantine-covered items tend to be electronic gadgets. I bought a phone last month that I had to open with my phase pistol — and I had to set it on “blast” mode, which I’ve only ever had to use once before, on Blektreggie VI. (A planet inhabited by mango-obsessed carapace gorilloids.)

Did you say you bought a Barbie doll last week?

Just you wait until my fleet gets here buster.

Next week: Did you ever consider that perhaps the planet Earth is just not ready for your intergalactic enlightenment in chimpy form?

Alltop is both ready for any chimpy form of humor. Appears in my collection, Pirate Therapy and Other Cures.