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Sunday, September 9, 2012

Diva on a Rant and the case of the Malware Mouthwash

Eat this! Don't eat that!.. um.. scuse me.. Can't Open it!

Usually I chew a piece of gum after a good dinner to ward off the harbingers of halitosis. However, driving along, I realized I had just purchased a bottle of mouthwash at Rite Aid and thought, well heck, why not break this puppy open and go for the gusto?

All I wanted to do was have fresh breath. Is it too much to ask? Back in the day, one purchased a bottle of anything.. I mean ANYTHING, and voila.. it opened.

At the traffic light, I held the bottle between my thighs and started to open the seal. Started. And stopped. Started. Looked dumbfounded. Stopped. Are you kidding me, I thought? Is this thing glued on? Was this on sale for 1.99 for a reason? Did I get the one bottle of defective mouthwash that inevitably comes in every shipment? Will the person in the other car ever stop staring at me as I have a discussion with myself and my mouthwash? Hey... What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen a person lash out at their Listermint? Nothing to see here...

The light turned green, and I replaced the bottle in the center holder with disgust. I pondered what caused a universe where someone just HAD to tamper with the medicine bottle and create a wave of tamper proofing the universe for the rest of life as we know it..

Are the seals sadistically strung, or are my fingers more fumbly? It can't be my age. I deny it with every fiber based vitamin in my depleted circulation system.

I can still tug my pants on and put eyeliner on remarkably well.. As long as I have a few qtips to clean up the jagged line.. unless I am really trying to achieve the Steve Tyler look.

I can twist off the lid on a jelly jar.. as long as I bang it several times using a protective glove mitt on the corner of the countertop.. and then run it under a stream of hot water.. and then yell for someone to come and do the final twist for me.

Felines are flabbergasted as well.. "We can't open it either.. do you have a Pounce?"

So it can't be me.

I was not going to let the antiseptic adversary best me. Yet trying to peel the label away was agonizing. It just would not rip. What sadistic mind behind the manufacturer door is making it so difficult to peel away a mouthwash childproof seal?

I imagine a Twenty Something young professional, hair in a bun, librarian glasses, short unpolished fingernails, spinning the seal around the bottle in a lab.. gleefully testing the product with children. I envision her smug smile when the child cannot of course loosen the seal. Of course she can't.. not without a child safe hacksaw.. or a machete

After many attempts with the fingers, it was time to move to the Bic pen in the glove department. Oh yes, I was attempting to do this inside my car. I live life on the edge.

"She thinks she has problems.. bring back the non Squirrel proof feeders please!"
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/owl-channel-3

Prying the tip of the pen into the label, I slipped and jabbed it into my right thigh. No ripping flesh wound, but a mighty ouchie.

However I was able to loosen and penetrate the formidable seal.. until it came down to the last layer.

I huffed and I puffed, but still had.. well ...bad breath. And a closed Mouthwash bottle.

Grasping with all my remaining strength in my numb fingers, I pulled for the last time.

That's when the seal broke, and the contents came cascading down all over my leg, my shorts, and the Not Mouthwash Protected seat cushion. Had I known there would be an eruption, I might have thought ahead to line the car with Hefty sealed garbage bags.

Caesar Salad still prevailed on my breath, but my Ford Fusion is now minty fresh.

I discarded the empty bottle and reached for the Doublemint gum.

At least I can still unwrap a stick of gum. I can still chew and enjoy it. Until I get dentures, of course. It's good to enjoy the little victories, and pick your battles as time marches on.

Did I win the battle? I can't tell.

My lips are sealed.

Diva on a Rant, resurfacing soon.. written by Angela Maniscalco.

12 barn owl fascinating facts

Discover 12 fascinating facts about the beautiful barn owl.
1 The barn owl was voted Britain’s favourite farmland bird by the public in an RSPB poll in July 2007.
2 Historically, the barn owl was Britain’s most common owl species, but today only one farm in about 75 can boast a barn owl nest.
3 Barn owls screech, not hoot (that’s tawny owls).
4 The barn owl can fly almost silently. This enables it to hear the slightest sounds made by its rodent prey hidden in deep vegetation while it’s flying up to three metres overhead.
5 The barn owl’s heart-shaped face collects sound in the same way as human ears. Its hearing is the most sensitive of any creature tested.
6 Barn owls are non-territorial. Adults live in overlapping home ranges, each one covering approximately 5,000 hectares. That’s a staggering 12,500 acres or 7,100 football pitches!
7 It’s not uncommon for barn owl chicks in the nest to feed each other. This behaviour is incredibly rare in birds.
8 In order to live and breed, a pair of barn owls needs to eat around 5,000 prey items a year. These are mainly field voles, wood mice, and common shrews.
9 Though barn owls are capable of producing three broods of five to seven young each year, most breed only once and produce, on average, only two and a half young. 29 per cent of nests produce no young at all.
10 91 per cent of barn owls post-mortemed were found to contain rat poison. Some owls die as a direct result of consuming rodenticides, but most contain sub-lethal doses. The effects of this remain unknown.
11 In a typical year, around 3,000 juvenile barn owls are killed on Britain’s motorways, dual carriageways and other trunk roads. That’s about a third of all the young that fledge.
12 Everyone can help barn owls. Leave a patch of rough grassland to grow wild thus creating habitat for voles, erect a super-safe deep nest box, volunteer for your local barn owl group, switch to non-toxic rodent control