I don’t know exactly what kinds of caps you guys are dealing with but in my experience there are two kinds of childproof caps – the kind where you have to press down when turning, and the kind where you have to line up a little invisible arrow on the cap with an equally invisible arrow on the bottle. At least, the arrows are invisible except in bright light, which it isn’t when I need to take a pill at bedtime. The press-n-turn type is easy, so naturally, the skill-testing align-the-arrows type is the one that’s almost always used.
It never occurred to me to ask if they had a non-childproof option. I will ask next time – thanks for the suggestion. However, this being super-safety-conscious Canada, they’re probably not allowed to offer them!
There’s also the kind of cap where you have to squeeze the outside of the cap before it will twist… Laundry detergent sometimes has this, but I’ve seen pill bottles do it too.
Oh, and the kind where you push a tab before twisting.
That last kind is what almost every prescription I get comes with.
Yesterday, as I was walking Bob around the neighborhood, I scooped some poop in a poopie bag and went on my way. It was windy and my hair was all over the place and my bangs were in my eyes, so like any other day I combed my hand through my hair. Do you remember the first sentence? Do you see where I’m going with this considering the thread? Yep. I had a big chunk of dog shit on my thumb that I didn’t notice until I felt it on my forehead.
That kind would seem easier to deal with than the “align the tabs” puzzle game in the dark of night. I haven’t seen that here. I haven’t seen the “squeeze sides” kind, either, except on large bottles of mouthwash, which have multiple skill-testing requirements before you’re allowed to access the product. First, you have to remove super tough plastic wrap from around the cap, which is designed to be as difficult as possible – apparently in the hope that you might injure yourself with some sharp implement – and then you’re required to do the squeeze-n-turn trick, which is usually impossible without the aid of powerful steam-powered hydraulic actuators. Once I finally get the cap off one of those fuckers, I put it back on loosely to avoid further aggravation.
Ooh, yes, my Listerine has that kind of lid. I totally forgot.
Removing the plastic wrap sucks because I swear that stuff is bulletproof, and while they have “easy tear” perforations they usually don’t really work. But once you get it off, that kind of lid is handy.
I do hate the “align the arrows” lid though. It’s so easy to see a white arrow match up with another white arrow on a white bottle with a white lid.
I guess my paws are just not that sensitive. I’ve never understood how braille could possibly work. Humans are an amazing species and I thank them for picking up our poop!
My eyedrops have the push down and turn lid. The “push down and turn” instructions are white letters on a white dime-sized lid and it took me forever to figure out how to open the bottle because I couldn’t see the damn instructions without my glasses on.
Some of those childproof caps are reversible. As in, flip it over and it’s not childproof anymore. In the illustration above you can see the scoring on the “small” side of the cap. That part will screw into the bottle on the inside and the cap will be easy to remove. I hope I’m making sense.
When I was living in Chicago and getting my wife’s prescriptions filled at Walgreen’s they had the reversible caps. Of course when they gave you the bottle it was in childproof mode, but after you did the press-and-turn you just had to flip it over to turn it into a regular screwtop. Once when I was picking up a prescription there was an elderly (well, at the time I thought of her as elderly, although I’m now probably about her age) who looked at her bottle of pills and complained that she wouldn’t be able to open it. So I opened it for her, flipped the cap, and showed her that it was now a simple screwtop. I thought she was going to kiss me.
After being in fairly extreme pain on Sunday, the rib is feeling much better today. I am going to downgrade my self diagnosis from a cracked rib to a bruised rib. Coughs and sneezes still hurt like hell, but are bearable. The long planned fishing trip this weekend should be fine, which is good since it is non-refundable.
When people say they’ve been abducted by aliens I tend to believe them & not think of them as crackpots. Why? Because I’ve gone fishing before & practiced catch-&-release.
Does the fish then go back to his buddies & say he was abducted & they anally probed weighed & measured him all why he was gasping for air before finally releasing him. Maybe we’re just in a giant fish pond & it really did happen to them
I once did the opposite, and the bike did a handstand on its front wheel… while I went flying over the handlebars.
So far, no accidents this season. Maybe because I’m taking fewer chances.
(My knee went out last week, and a lot of ice, ibuprofen and a cortisone injection later, I’m still riding slower and more carefully than usual.)
