My eyes no longer work too well…
I cannot read small print;
I don’t know where my glasses are
And always have to squint.
My hands, of course, are even worse,
My fingers ache and swell,
Arthritis, past its sell-by date,
Is putting them through hell.
Now factor in an RSI,
Because I type too much,
Then add a dodgy back and stuff…
I wince with every touch.
And so to get some small relief
To bottles, I retreat,
Not gin, though with the child-proof caps
On pills, I’d drink it neat!
It’s age-discrimination
When they proof the pots for kids,
‘Cause when your hands are playing up,
You can’t take off the lids.
Though some pills come all wrapped in foil
That’s fine and dandy, but…
As soon as you begin to rip
The stuff, you end up cut.
So, reaching for the first aid kit
You rummage for a plaster…
And find they are wrapped in a way
That Einstein couldn’t master.
By now the kitchen is awash
With blood and choice expressions,
You need something to treat you
For incipient depression.
And that comes in a blister pack
Whose blister will not break…
And though you’ve had no pills at all,
You’ve had all you can take!
I do not want a child-proof cap,
A blister pack or foil,
Such innovations are a pain
That set my blood to boil.
Just tell me I’m old-fashioned
And produce a screw top pot
That’s easier to open
Than the packaging we’ve got.
It is reactionary,
But honest, when we’re ill,
We do not want a battleground
To get a single pill!
I am not alone… Marilyn Armstrong posted the other day about this, which reminded me of the half-finished poem…and the number of times I have resorted to sawing the lids off child-proof jars 😉
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
Oh man Sue! I totally get where you are coming from! There is child proof, then there is ‘child proof’!!!!
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I detest these things when they make it impossible to get in…except for youngsters 😉
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I struggle to open the kid’s vitamin bottle, yet Lil Man does it with ease… where’s the sense in that!??
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I know the feeling… I’ve had to saw the tops of bottles to get at the arthritis pills 😉
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Ouch!
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Oh boy, just like your food post (on which I wrote a huge rant that didn’t ‘take’) I agree with every point. I had to go next door for help to open my eyedrops after cataract op.
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I understand child-proofing as a safety measure…but those of us heading towards our second childhood probably don’t need the precautions 😉
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I usually request non-child-proof tops but Boots or whoever rarely have enough in stock. More discrimination.
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It is ages since I’ve been able to get hold of one of those.
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After all that, I completely forgot my morning pills!
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That’s somthing I’d be likely to do 😉
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We bend over backwards to accommodate children. We need to start doing the same for the older crowd that have been paying the bloody taxes for decades!
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I am all for keeping the children safe, but it makes you wonder how much of an economic inconvenience we become as we age…
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The poem made me smile, and shows a resilience of character as well as style and ability but mostly I’m sad that someone like yourself has to go through this stuff. I really hope you get better soon and your eyes start to provide normal service soon. Thoughts are with you x
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I think my eyes are just objecting to being well-used for so long, Peter, along with the rest of me 😉
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yes i think it’s a way to force us to cut down on medicine. If tablets had come foil wrapped in biblical times I doubt Moses would have bothered with the ten commandments
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So why make us buy the stuff in the first place? Probably so they can say they did all they could…
Moses might have had to add another commandment… though he may have covered it with the one about blasphemy…
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Excellent. Curating for my tribe. My own pet peave: ziplock cheese packages that are anything but ziplock. I’ve taken to scissoring those damned packages and moving the cheese to hefty zippy bags.
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I can sympathise with that stance… though I go more for a bit of greaseproff paper, as a rule. Zippers of any description come with inbuilt dangers 😉
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Pingback: Medication frustration | Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo – Empty Nest Man
I LOVE the poem. I am not the only one attacking the damn medication containers with sharp implements!
Can I reblog this?
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By all means, reblog away 🙂 I don’t think we are alone in this battle of the bottles 😉
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Thanks! 😉
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Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
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😀
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You won’t hear any argument from me.
xxx Gigantic Hugs xxx
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Hugs, David… a fellow sufferer 😉 xxx
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A really wonderful poem. But isnt it great, we also can use ebooks to manage our eye-disabilities. 😉
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My son swears by his e-books for that. I still cling to my paper pages most of the time 🙂
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Oh, yes. In our business we are now working 90% paperless since over five years. But i also know, ebooks are not the best if authors want to earn money. ;-( Michael
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That depends…there are usually higher percentage royalties on ebooks, though the price is substantially lower to begin with. I just like the smell and feel of paper book 🙂
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What a clever and entertaining poem!
And those fiendish strip which don’t give way until you apply maximum pressure and then the tablet flies out over you head to vanish into some dusty corner, or down the sink with an accuracy which would leave golfers weeping.
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Ah yes…I’ve had that happen, Roger… and scrabbled around the florr trying to find tiny pills before the dog does…
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I thought maybe it was just ME. One of the drawers in my kitchen is FULL of tools. Pliers, hammers (big AND small), screwdrivers — big, medium, and little. Also, those really tiny one to use for fixing eyeglasses … because then there’s when that itty bitty screw comes out of your frames and I (me?) am supposed to put it back. Sure!
And a sharp pair of pruning shears . The hand-ax is downstairs, but I’m not above going to get it!
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Definitely not just you, Marilyn… there seem to be enough of us to start a movement 🙂
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Reblogged this on notewords and commented:
For all those who have ever had trouble popping a pill…
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Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie.
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Thanks for sharing, Jaye x
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It must be some kind of conspiracy, that’s all I can say. I have trouble opening anything…
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Me too, these days 😉
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Oh, Sue, you really have the most amazing way of making life’s frustrations so funny. It helps to laugh at life, what else can you do?
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Not a lot…other than tearing your hair out 🙂
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Ought’a call ’em ‘adult proof’! … you think someone might ask, “Are their any children in the house?” … and if there were none, they’d say, “here have a sane bottle then.”
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It would be a common sense move…but there you have it…
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Amusing tale about an annoying thing I know well, lol. Almost anything that comes packaged as well seems like duct taped. I’ve found a rubber glove is my best kitchen friend. Next time put one on and you’ll grip the lid better, in fact, any lid that is tight will come off. 🙂 x
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That. of course, is assuming you can get into the vacuum packed rubber gloves 😉
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I agree. xxx
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Actually, Sue I’ve heard the way to get the top off a child-proof bottle is to let a child do it. No problem. 🙂 — Suzanne
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I will admit that to be absolutely right 🙂
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Reblogged this on powerfulwomenreaders.
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LOL. I can certainly identify with this. The best remedy for those lids is a wrench. If that fails, there is always a hammer.
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I prefer the saw 😉
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Haha! That would do the trick.
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😀
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Blister packs, pill bottles and jars are the bain of my life. I’ve every kind of opener available under the sun, but still struggle with some things. Ring pulls on tins are the work of the devil I’m sure.
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Ah…they are indeed… but having said that, so are can openers these days 😉
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