For the Directionally Challenged

Okay, never mind about the career angst. It all changed last night as I was getting ready for bed. I found my calling. I can both contribute to society and work from home.

"How can you do this?" you ask incredulously.

I guffaw in reply. It's just so easy!

Last night, I opened a new tube of toothpaste. And, being the obsessive reader that I am, I read the tube as I brushed my teeth. I know! I'm weird. I just can't help it.

So anyway, while the brand shall remain nameless (Although it starts with an "Arm" and ends with an "& Hammer"), I would like to share with you, verbatim, what I found in red writing on the back of the tube:

TO USE:
1) With cap on, squeeze tube from bottom to push product towards cap end
2) Remove cap, squeeze front and back of tube evenly from bottom to dispense
3) Flatten tube from bottom keeping product pushed towards cap end
4) If both sides of toothpaste come out unevenly, continue squeezing tube until both halves come out equally, adjusting squeezing pressure as necessary.

Seriously? I mean, people really need that? I flipped over the tube to the front side and, sure enough, just above the crimped end of the tube it said "Squeeze from bottom. Push towards cap." The text was framed with helpful arrows on both sides.

When I see things like this, I can only wonder why. How? Everyone's heard the storied legend of McDonald's coffee. So now all containers that may contain something more than lukewarm read "Caution: Hot things may cause burns," etc.

But what happened to make such explicit instructions necessary on toothpaste? How, exactly, could a person squeeze wrongly enough to elicit these step-by-careful-step guidelines. This may be a fancy toothpaste where two separate pastes come together at the squirt step (hence the admonition about keeping the sides even), but the precautions still don't seem quite justified. Even a little.

It makes me think of all the little things around the house that I take for granted. Like doors. Who has really told me how to open them? Or what the dangers are? How am I to realize that they could viciously swing into my pate, causing potential swelling and disfiguration? HOW AM I TO KNOW?!?

It's a dangerous world out there. Surprisingly, beauty products are apparently applied by more sensible people. After learning about the difficulties of operating a tube of toothpaste, I examined my recently purchased moisturizer. The instructions on the box leave a lot of details to the imagination, simply directing the user to "Apply liberally on face and neck every night before sleep to smooth and firm skin overnight. Avoid direct contact with the eye."

Well, how do I get the jar open? And which eye should I avoid? I guess beauty product makers care less about their customers' safety than the toothpaste makers do.

Although I should actually look at this as an opportunity. Maybe I can make the beauty product supplier realize the error of their ways and get them to hire me as a writer of needless directions. I could then branch out and tell people how to flip magazine pages to avoid papercuts or sit on furniture without falling off. Although the point of these directions is probably more to avoid lawsuits than to instruct actual consumers in the proper use of items, I can always hope that someday, I just might save someone's life from an errant tube of toothpaste. In the meantime, I will be making the world a better, less litigious place, one step at a time.