Puzzle Box Adds a Little Hellraiser to Gift Giving
My mother has a charming, if annoying gift-wrapping habit: she writes the name of the recipient in tiny script somewhere in the intricate patterns of packaging, forcing the screaming rabble of children and grandchildren to pause before each present is ripped open and its contents slathered all over our bodies. (In keeping with midwestern tradition, we gift each other only pork-derived salves.) My sister and I quickly learned how to beat the system, doing all our sorting before Christmas morning, arranging the gifts in a stacks that we could recognize but would not tip off our mother to our scheme so she could rearrange the packages.
So I should hate this puzzle gift box that Phil discovered—I think it's called "Movie Maze"; the company is "Magnif"—but I can't help but think of how much fun it will be to frustrate children with this in the future. You've ripped off the wrapping paper, you little bastards, but now you must think! Being an adult is awesome.
Solve puzzles before you can open a DVD, CD, book, money... [MAKE]
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As a young child, I would have just taken the box into the backyard and smashed it with a rock. I don't know how durable the plastic is, but if it's sturdy, I suppose it could be an all-day mental or physical activity for kids.
MY roommate got some movie tickets in one of these from their parents a few years back.
She kept planning to use the puzzle box to give someone else a gift, but didn't feel like re-solving the puzzle to open it and put the gift in.
"In keeping with mid-western tradition, we gift each other only pork-derived salves."
Oh how I wish I was brought up in the Mid-West. :)
My mother-in-law gave my wife and I a couple of these with our Christmas presents this last year. I thought it was pretty fun, and kept doing it over and over again until I memorized that path. My wife was pretty frustrated with it until she thought to grab a magnet and solve it that way.