Getting older means finding it difficult to open things. Things like jars of jam, things like bottles of juice. This has a lot to do with the waning power of hands and wrists. But I would also argue that it has to do with some devilish inventions for keeping us out of the items we are trying to get at.

Consider the large jug of apple juice that we often buy, which comes with a plastic top. That top has an indentation where the screw-off part is supposed to separate from the lower part. Sometimes with a little huffing and puffing, that screw-off part separates nicely. But sometimes not. Then we pull out a serrated knife to open up that indentation. And when that doesn’t work, we pull out an adjustable wrench that opens far enough to get a purchase on the top.

We have some other gadgets that have worked less well. Once I even went back to the supermarket with an unopenable bottle and asked a large young man behind the service counter to go to work. Took him about five seconds. But it does seem like a lot of trouble to get a bottle opened.

Recently we’ve encountered another recalcitrant piece of equipment. A newish refrigerator has had what seemed to us a quirky problem. Sometimes the door to the regular compartment opened smoothly and sometimes it needed a big yank to get it open.

There didn’t seem to be a pattern, but it had become a nuisance. My husband and I open the fridge’s door fairly often and I noticed that there was often the sound of bad language that accompanied this activity. Yank, yank, cuss, cuss. Was it just our fridge? Was it just us? After finding no answers to these questions, I decided to do a little internet search.

This problem, it seems, is not limited to us or our fridge. Turns out there are a lot of frustrated refrigerator door openers, and not just old folks. One described actually pulling the fridge halfway across the kitchen before the door would open.

One article, aiming to be helpful, explained that the problem “results from thermodynamics.” The vacuum created on the door happens when you blend cold and warm air, producing a pressure differential. OK, I thought, so what am I supposed to do about this? Stop opening the door? How do I get at the eggs, the milk, the cheese, the blueberries?

Several solutions were suggested, none of which I’ve tried yet, but will report back. One involves raising the temperature of the freezer. (Carefully follow instructions in manual, otherwise this may cause other sorts of problems.) Another involved prying the rubber gasket that seals the door shut to create a space. (But be careful not to damage the rubber gasket since tears or holes can produce a persistent air leak, ruining the freezer’s seal.)

So far, the cures seemed only slightly better than the disease and full of possible risks. The easiest of the fixes involved checking to see that the gasket and the door were free of sticky substances like jam or maple syrup. Checked, no sticky substances. As I said, I’ll report back. But suggestions are welcome.

Marietta Pritchard lives in Amherst. She can be reached at mppritchard@comcast.net.