Friday, February 02, 2007

No More Free Cotton

As I picked up a prescription the other day, it occurred to me that I could hear the pills rattle. I’ve been hearing pills rattle for some time, but it never seemed significant. (There must be some aging rule, you know, like one new pill for every five years over the age of 50.) Maybe I never really paid attention to the sound before because I’ve been busy with more important matters like trying to find a good rock and roll radio station.

The pills rattled because there was no little cotton puff stuffed on top of them to cushion and minimize their space. I miss that little wad of cotton but not because of it’s cushioning effect, but because of all it’s recycling potential.

I don’t know about your house, but in mine, we had a special container just for the cotton plucked from pill bottles. Who bought cotton balls? Just get one out of the container. That cotton was used to remove nail polish, swab out the dog’s ears, apply all sorts of liquids to all sorts of places, stuff or restuff small toys and pillows, and spread oily stuff on tools. The uses were endless

Now it’s all over. The pills rattle in their cottonless containers. It’s the end of an era. Economy has prevailed. What’s next? Will we just hold out our hands so the pharmacist can pour the pills into our cupped palms? Maybe we'll bring our own containers like a chipped coffee cup and an old mayonnaise jar or save and reuse the bags in which we brought home the tomatoes?

Maybe instead of recycling my pill containers, I’ll just save them for the future. I could stand outside the pharmacy and offer them to people with no containers. “Get your red hot pill bottles here!”

Or I could save them up and build something. In no time I would have enough to build an small house. Why not? I’ve seen pictures of houses built from beer cans. I can “chink” the spaces with cotton. Oh, wait. There’s no cotton. Oh, the heck with it. I’m going back to looking for that good rock and roll radio station!

© Copyright 2007 Suzzwords

5 comments:

  1. Indeed Suzz, what will be next to go, dare we hope that it will be that thick moulded plastic wrap that protects so many products from all but a serious onslaught with scissors.
    Let us pray that it is.

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  2. Anonymous8:07 AM

    Recently, my pills have a small valve (for moisture protection I think), so being the recycle person I am, these are put into my shoeboxes to prevent MOLD. Of couse, it takes quite a few in each box.

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  3. I don't know why, but I tend to save pill containers too Suzz. What for....I don't know? I always think they could be used for something down the line. I almost feel guilty for throwing them out. That might be interesting to analyze.

    Cotton? Now that you mention it...I haven't seen cotton in my prescriptions for a long time.

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  4. Suzz
    Next we will go by the pharmacy everyday and open our mouths and the pharmacist will plop in our pills and save the cost of the bottle and the cotton and then the drug companies will make even more profit.

    Brave new world....;)

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  5. Anonymous7:48 PM

    #1 son had an ear ache a few years back and I was going to put some warm medicine in his ear and stuff it with cotton -- ONLY to find out that my new Ibuprofen bottle had no cotton! I was shocked at the time. Since then, I have found no "free" cotton.

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