How to Open a Medicine Bottle

Everyone will agree that children need to be protected from harm, but where it comes to medicine bottles, they are not only designed to be childproof, in many cases, they are also adult proof.

You should have seen me wrestle with a bottle of cough mixture this morning. If this battle had been captured on video, it might have received thousands of views with people laughing their heads off.

The instructions on the bottle were quite simple … push down and twist. So, I pushed and twisted, pushed and twisted some more but other than a clicking noise, the cap didn't budge.

With a 'fine, have it your way' I pushed the bottle in the corner of the kitchen counter and went to sit down to rest. That battle with the bottle cap had left me exhausted.

Never one to give up easily, some fifteen minutes later it was time for round two. I grabbed the bottle by its neck and was gonna show it who's boss. I pushed and twisted, pushed and twisted and after a few failed attempts I had to admit that the bottle was boss. We each retreated to our corners.

As I sat in my chair, making coughing noises that would have scared a bulldog, I eyed the bottle on the kitchen counter. Why did the manufacturers make it so difficult for people to open the darn thing? Surely, they realized that those who needed cough mixture were not feeling too great to begin with, so why make things extra difficult for them?

I was not gonna be defeated though, I would persevere and that bottle better watch out because I was coming at it with a vengeance and this time I wasn't leaving until I had its top severed from its body. "Come here you," I said. "I'm gonna push and twist and you're gonna open or I'm gonna throw you off the balcony." The prospect of taking a flying leap 11 floors down must have filled the bottle with panic as he released his cap on the second try.

Now that the bottle was open I faced a second challenge … was this stuff safe to drink? According to the label, the syrup could cause serious kidney and liver damage, was not recommended for patients with heart problems or asthma, while in bold letters the label stated that pregnant women should not drink this. Holy crap … cure a cough, run the risk of developing more serious problems.

In the end, I decided to risk it. It wasn't as if I was going to drink copious amounts of this stuff. But still, why does it have to be this way? Why can't the scientists come up with safe medication?

Some might say that there are natural ways of healing a cough and believe me, I've already researched and found that honey has healing properties. So, I've been sipping honey water, but I'm sorry to say it doesn't work. I still cough and cough, or shall I say, I bark and bark.

Next up, a Tylenol bottle. This one too came with a childproof lid and the instruction to open was straightforward. Position the triangle of the lid over the triangle of the bottle and snap the lid off. Okay, I was sure I could do that. Problem was, I no longer have 20/20 vision so I squinted and squinted but try as I might, I couldn't see those triangles. Let me go get my glasses. Ah, now I could see the triangles. I positioned one over the other, held my breath as my thumb pushed against the lid and … it popped off.

Perhaps the makers of cough syrup should take a page out of Tylenol's book. People who are sick generally don't have the energy to perform a battle with the bottle.