Frustrated with buying a new CD and then spending 20 minutes in the parking lot trying to get through the shrink-wrap so that you can actually listen to it on the way home?

Well if you have a puppy handy, you can always hand a corner to her for a few seconds (you’ll also end up with cracks in the jewel case, not to mention other dangers associated with babies and cellophane).

Figure 1. Poodle Method (not advised)





Remember in the 90’s when certain music stores would let you bring any CD up to their Special Counter – where they’d open it and let you listen to the music before buying?

Remember how often you realized the liner artists were more talented than the musicians and left empty-handed – probably why most places don’t offer this anymore!

Where I used to shop most of the employees had special blades for opening the CDs – but there was one guy who could open one just as quickly with his bare hands.

Wanna hear it – here it go!

Find a surface that has a non-rounded edge – like a counter or metal door frame. Apply a good deal of pressure and run the CD quickly along that edge. I’m using a bookcase shelf in the picture below. Note that I’m sliding in the up-to-down direction, not left-to-right.

Figure 2. Attacking Shrink



If you’re lucky, on the first or second try you’ll get the cellophane peeled back as shown below. From there it’s easy to get the rest of the cellophane off with your fingers.

Figure 3. Shrink-Wrap Breached



But once the shrink-wrap is gone, there will probably be a sticker underneath like the white one shown below. These can be a major pain to get off because you just can’t seem to get your fingernail underneath a corner. (I actually stuck this one on myself for the example as this CD didn’t come with one) .

Figure 4. Backup Shield Holding



However, what you can easily do is carefully un-snap the jewel case cover at the hinge on the lower left side as shown below.

Figure 5. There’s Always a Backdoor



Now separate the two parts of the case and you have easy access to peel off the sticker. Do that, snap the jewel case back together, and you’re good to go.