Avoid contact with eyes
This is my little corner of the medicine cabinet. If you share a bathroom with a wife + two daughters, it's all you're allocated. Take a look at the two bottles in the center. Can you tell which is the Murine ear drops and which is the Bausch & Lomb Advanced Eye Relief?
Of course you can't. They're identical. I suppose if you were to grab the eye drops and put them in your ear, it would only result in a squishy, ineffective cleaning. But if you were to accidentally grab the ear drops and put them in your eyes, as I did, you'd have a real problem on your hands.
We were in a hurry leaving for the neighborhood Halloween party. The kids were downstairs in their costumes, ready to go. I finished getting dressed and quickly—because starring at monitors day and night is starting to make my eyes throb constantly—I grabbed the eye drops, walked to the bedroom (I, being a multi-tasker) and popped a few in my eyes. Except it wasn't the eye drops. It was the ear drops.
It burned. And burned. And burned. Tears started streaming down my face. I rushed to the sink and feverishly started to flush my eyes out with water. Meanwhile, everyone is getting quite impatient with me because they don't want to be late to the festivities and I'm taking so long. I tried calling out for Mrs. Wife but the words were choked in my throat.
Eventually the burning subsided. I straightened up and looked at myself in the mirror. My face was soaked and where my eyes are normally white, it was red. I looked like a vampire after a good meal. Everything looked kind of wavy.
Why in God's name would they make the bottles so similar? Obviously, I'm at fault, but manufactures should protect people like me from myself. When my vision cleared I read the warnings and, sure enough, it said to avoid contact with eyes and flush with water if you can't manage to do that. At least I got the remedy part right.
Of course you can't. They're identical. I suppose if you were to grab the eye drops and put them in your ear, it would only result in a squishy, ineffective cleaning. But if you were to accidentally grab the ear drops and put them in your eyes, as I did, you'd have a real problem on your hands.
We were in a hurry leaving for the neighborhood Halloween party. The kids were downstairs in their costumes, ready to go. I finished getting dressed and quickly—because starring at monitors day and night is starting to make my eyes throb constantly—I grabbed the eye drops, walked to the bedroom (I, being a multi-tasker) and popped a few in my eyes. Except it wasn't the eye drops. It was the ear drops.
It burned. And burned. And burned. Tears started streaming down my face. I rushed to the sink and feverishly started to flush my eyes out with water. Meanwhile, everyone is getting quite impatient with me because they don't want to be late to the festivities and I'm taking so long. I tried calling out for Mrs. Wife but the words were choked in my throat.
Eventually the burning subsided. I straightened up and looked at myself in the mirror. My face was soaked and where my eyes are normally white, it was red. I looked like a vampire after a good meal. Everything looked kind of wavy.
Why in God's name would they make the bottles so similar? Obviously, I'm at fault, but manufactures should protect people like me from myself. When my vision cleared I read the warnings and, sure enough, it said to avoid contact with eyes and flush with water if you can't manage to do that. At least I got the remedy part right.
posted by The Unbearable Banishment at
7:20 AM
19 Comments:
ye-OWCH! can easily see how you made that mistake... had a scratched cornea once, and am familiar with just how much pain you can suffer when you injure an eye... just a suggestion, though. there are better ways to get yourself "zombie-ied up" for halloween.
Hopefully it prevented you from having to suffer through another Browns loss to the Steelers, here's hoping you can see this morning or at least take some time off from looking at those monitors.
You're fibbing!
You really are a vampire, aren't you?
Sx
Could've been worse, be thankful you don't have 'Preparation H' in your medicine locker! :¬)
That sure is a wee space you have there, I feel your pain I once brushed my teeth with Vagisil.
Ouch!
Oh! Owie!!! Could you not put a piece of coloured tape (like RED) on the ear drops to remind you which bottle they are???
And yeah, that is a pretty small space you've got there.
Mistaking lotion for hair gel (don't ask how) is probably my biggest goof in this arena. And I may have sprayed hairspray under my arms once, long, long ago.
Owwee! Thanks for the PSA - maybe Richard Greico can play you in the made-for-tv dramatization!
Even if you flushed and all, maybe you should see a doctor anyway?
Daisy: Thanks for allowing my a shred of dignity. Yes, it WAS an easy mistake.
Kono: I smartly shifted my alliance to the Giants/Jets years ago. I'm allowed. I've spent more years in NYC than Clevo.
SB: I am! And I vant your neck.
Map: Oh, map. Do you always have to work blue?
SF: Do you know what I think? I think I got off easy. Brushing with Vagisil is worse. I'm not even sure what it is.
Sid: Thanks for not saying "Ha!"
Ponita: They are now on separate shelves. (I have three more equally narrow shelves above that one.)
HIF: I knew a guy who use to work conditioner into his hair and never rinse it out. He just left it there. And that was on purpose!
FG: That's what the label said. Flush with water and see a doctor. Maybe I'll do that. Maybe.
My brother-in-law once sprayed inside his underpants with deep heat. Apparently he lay on the bed for the rest of the day and my sister had to keep furnishing him with iced towels. I still don't know what he thought he was spraying.
Sounds like you need more space, though I don't suppose you'll make that mistake again.
FUCK
Maybe it is a trick of the light but the one on the left looks more like my eye drop bottle.
I agree it is a design fault and worth commenting in the right place to give them a chance to rectify it.
If you had boys you would have all the time in the bathroom you wanted. Mucky teenagers!
Eryl: I can ASSURE you that I'll never make that same mistake. Funny...at one point I saw the two bottles and thought this might happen one day.
Ellie: All the girls, with their virgin ears, were downstairs so that's exactly what I said.
Pat: I'd love to blame it on a design flaw but the truth is that I should pay more attention.
We do things like that and then we use marking pens of different colors to help pick up the right thing and then we forget what the color means and we are back to square one.
a day late and a dollar short, but what about buying one of them in a larger size? (i think i would have been saying more than "FUCK" if it had been me, sugar!) *L* xoxoxox
If it makes you feel better, a woman at work who used to constantly hum these high pitched tunes had not been humming any for a while. I asked her what's wrong, who died. Turns out her vocal chords were a bit under the weather since she brushed her teeth with mosquito repellent. The tubes were too similar it seems.
I just saw a piece on "The Consumerist" highlighting how cans of Great Value Lemon Cleaning Spray look very similar to cans of Great Value Cooking Spray. Wouldn't want to get those mixed up either.
Did the red eyes enhance your costume?
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