The most painful part of my toothache was trying to get into the Tylenol wrapper!
On a recent assignment to Mexico I flew from Toronto to Miami, from Miami to Cancun. I dislike flying because I’m old enough to remember what a pleasure it was. Anyway, on the flight to Miami, I was chewing gum on landing to avoid the whole pressure on the eardrum thing when, for some unknown reason, I had incredible pain on the right side of my jaw. It felt like an abscessed tooth with searing, radiating pain that just wouldn’t go away. Whoa!
The pain lasted until the wheels touched down when it dulled into incredible soreness, like someone had punched me in the jaw. With one hand on my face and the other lugging my bags I made my way to my connecting flight. Once settled, I looked around for a place to buy some drugs!
I found a kiosk that sold a variety of pills and chose the 2-packet of extra strength Tylenol along with a bottle of water. I went back to my gate, opened the package of Tylenol and removed one of the packets. With my mouth throbbing, I tried to rip open the packet but it wouldn’t budge. I folded on the line then tried to rip, and then I folded the other way and tried to rip. I tried every corner, folded and unfolded but no luck. I smoothed out the package in an attempt to start Pokies again and that’s when I saw it. The tiny little picture of scissors indicating I had to cut open the packet.
Ok, I’m no rocket scientist but when you’re making a product and selling it in an airport, who the heck has scissors, especially after you’ve gone past security! Stupid! So I went to the airline employee at the gate who tells me that they’re not even allowed to have scissors (what do we all look like mass murders or something?). So in a not very happy mood, I made my way back to the kiosk with my hand at my mouth to minimalize the throbbing while the other hand now is towing my luggage, a bottle of water and this little packet of pills – aughhh relief is so close!
The women at the kiosk didn’t have any scissors either but she took pity on me. After a quick think, she pulled out a staple remover and attacked the packet. Within minutes she was tearing it to shreds and had the little pills out for me.
With a few hours the pain and soreness had completely gone so yes, they work. But my question is, how could a company as large as Tylenol get it so wrong?! Selling a product that you need scissors to use in a place were it is illegal to possess a pair of scissors! If there’s a website that collects stupid things, let me know and I’ll add this one to it!