Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Truth In Packaging

People under the age of forty probably don't remember when you could buy a bottle of Tylenol®, and easily open it up to get to the contents. In 1970 they passed a law requiring child resistant packaging for over the counter drugs. This was probably a good idea because as a kid I remember eating the delicious orange flavored children's aspirin my mom kept in the medicine cabinet. They tasted a little like Pez candy, but tended to give you a bit of a stomach ache.

In 1982 some insane, sociopath decided it would be fun to lace Tylenol® with cyanide, then put the poisoned pills back on store shelves. Seven people died. As a result, another layer of tamper resistant packaging was required. Now when I buy a new bottle of my favorite, Excedrin®, I first have to get past the protective outer coating, then outsmart the child-proof cap, and finally with the help of a kitchen knife, break open the foil seal under the cap. After all that, I still have to go get some tweezers to extract the wad of cotton from inside the bottle.

For Christmas, Mark got me an 'Ultimate Trimmer', which the package described as 'ideal for beards, mustaches, and nose hair'. Considering that I don't have a beard, or a mustache, I guess Mark is trying to tell me something about nose hairs, or he just thinks my nose hairs are a mustache. The problem with the trimmer is that it was packaged to deter shop lifters from just dropping it down their pants. That means it was encased in a large, clear, plastic bubble that could only be opened by an orangutan, armed with a crowbar. After first trying to pull it open, I tried stabbing at it with one of Mark's expensive kitchen knives. That didn't work, so I then tried the shears that mark uses for cutting up chickens. Finally, after drawing blood, and getting out the electric carving knife, I was able to remove my new Ultimate Trimmer. It was well worth it, because I now have neatly trimmed nostrils, and I can't wait to try it on some of my other hairy parts. Or maybe I'll just grow a beard so I can give it a real workout.

3 comments:

  1. Grow the beard, Alan...that thing looks mighty big for just trimming your nose. Most of the child resistant packaging I just dip into peanut butter and let the dogs chew on until there's a gap big enough to get the object out. With meds...I've got SOFA KING many that they sit in a Waterford crystal bowl on our dining room after I crack them open with a pair of vice-grip pliers.

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  2. I'm shock there were not any photos up your nose showing us before and after pictures.

    That would have been classic Alan World.

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  3. Just spare the details of the "other" hairy parts!

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