CONTEST ENTRY- The Immaculate Rituals

**TheNovice** · 11-26-2010, 10:07 PM

Below is my article on my personal rituals and also what I believe is the importance of having rituals when opening packs or boxes. Thanks!

Every time my hands touch the foil of a pack, or the cardboard of a box, I have a way of assuring myself that I will get the best break possible. There is a tactic I always use, a method to my madness if you will, which must be performed flawlessly or else the break will be awful. Believe me when I say that you must always, I mean always, stick to your rituals. Heed my words, or suffer the pain of awful cards.

When dealing with a pack, you must be precise in order to be blessed with a decent break. Here is a list of things NOT TO DO: rip the pack open randomly; use scissors to cut the top of the pack off; use your teeth to rip the pack open. First off, you need to start by making sure all of the cards are as far down in the pack as possible. Then, you must pinch your pointer finger and thumb together at the middle of the top of the pack, on the front side. Simultaneously, using your opposite hand, you must pinch the top of the pack directly opposite where you are pinching with your other hand (see the first picture below). Slowly, but surely, you then pull with both hands. This will result (hopefully) in the top of the pack opening perfectly, allowing you to easily slide your cards out. The beauty of this approach is that once you have surveyed your beauties, you can simply slide them back into the pack where they will be safe and secure.

A box, on the other hand, is a different story. Of course, you must start by removing the shrink-wrap. DO NOT: use scissors to cut the corners of the wrapping off; use a knife to cut the wrapping off. Instead, using either the nail of your pointer finger or thumb, you will remove the wrapping. You will run your nail down one of the edges of the box repeatedly, until the wrapping is extremely weak at that edge. Then, you can simply grasp the box with two hands, and use your thumbs to part the wrapping from the edge (see the second picture below). Now that your box is out of its shell, you can get down to business. If you want, you can just rip the box open like an animal, but I'm not responsible for any bad breaks as a result of doing that. I prefer to nicely open the top of the box by pulling the tab of the top out. Now you can get your hands onto the precious packs within. Make sure to use the steps above, regarding opening packs, to insure that your break is the best possible!

Recently, I grabbed a few packs at Wal-Mart and abandoned my ritual when opening them. I thought it was nonsense to keep doing such a tedious ritual. I ripped the packs open in a random fashion and took the cards out. What I held in my hands was trash,a bunch of scrubs and no-names. A fitting result for such foolishness! Allow this misfortune to be an example of why you should never go against your method. DO NOT mess with the rituals!

I recommend that everyone should form their own ritual(s) for opening boxes and packs. It could be something as ludicrous, and tedious as mine, or it could be something very simple. I believe that having rituals that you repeat adds to the fun of the break. Then when you get a big hit, you can credit it to your ridiculous little tricks. Try out your own little rituals, and let me know what you think of them. If you are too lazy to think of your own, feel free to try mine. I hope those of you who do try using rituals enjoy them as much as I enjoy my rituals!

Those of you reading this probably thought at least once that I must be a nutcase. In actuality, I’m just a 15 year old kid from New York who has recently gotten into collecting more seriously. As a young kid, I used to beg my mother to buy me cards, usually to no avail. Back then, all I knew about cards were that they were so fun to collect and trade with a friend of mine whom my mother babysat. I used to always try and get Hines Ward cards out of packs at Wal-Mart, which usually didn’t happen. Somewhere along the line, I started opening packs exactly the way I instructed to in the second paragraph of this article. I used to think that if I didn't do it, I would somehow damage the cards or end up having no Hines Ward cards in the pack. When I was lucky enough to get a Ward, I would go nuts as if I were the winner of the Mega Millions. I, of course, thought that I got them as a reward for my perfect opening of the pack. If I didn’t get any Wards, I would hope to get a Michael Vick to trade with my friend for a Ward. I stopped collecting for several years, and returned recently for one reason or another. I have enjoyed my return and I credit most of the fun to SCF for the pleasant environment.

P.S. I actually DO [still] follow those rituals when opening packs and boxes!

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