Laundry Detergent Pods... Really?

[Marcus Impudite]

Did all the world suddenly turn into an episode of MTV's Jackass while I was asleep some night? It's one thing for small children to do something this dumb because they're... Well, they're small children and really need to have competent adult supervision. But honestly, once you're 8 years or older you're supposed to know better than to eat a packet of concentrated laundry soap. Some days if I didn't laugh, I'd cry.

[Starlord]

Every generation has its 'detergent pod eaters'.

 

Times have not become more violent.  They've just become more televised.  - Marilyn Manson 

[Lord Liaden]

 

[Pariah]

This is the Universe's punishment to our society for being too lazy and/or stupid to measure our own laundry detergent.

[Old Man]

Especially when most loads hardly need a full measure of detergent to begin with. 

[wcw43921]

I admit, I find the pods quite convenient.  I used to get the Purex pods because they were generally cheaper, but they stopped making those.  Hopefully the makers of Tide won't cave in to the bad publicity generated by the massive stupidity of--well, the massively stupid.

[Ragitsu]

I imagine the bright and colorful packaging of Tide pods doesn't help to distinguish them from candy and other desserts when the person perceiving the packaging is relatively ignorant (and I mean that in the most neutral sense of the word).

[Ternaugh]

37 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

I imagine the bright and colorful packaging of Tide pods doesn't help to distinguish them from candy and other desserts when the person perceiving the packaging is relatively ignorant (and I mean that in the most neutral sense of the word).

 

The pods are in a package that looks pretty much like any other Tide detergent package. Tide has been making the packaging progressively harder to open. There's a slide zipper that requires *just* the right mount of pressure on the very top while it's sliding, or the bag doesn't open (I'm betting that it's pretty much impossible if a person has arthritis in their hands). That's to prevent small kids from being able to open the bag, but it's obviously not there for some teenager who's too stupid to avoid peer pressure, or trying to show off.

[Old Man]

3 hours ago, wcw43921 said:

I admit, I find the pods quite convenient. 

 

We get liquid detergent in the large jug with the spigot and park it on the washer, over the detergent drawer.  Slide out the drawer, pop the measuring cup off the spigot, ignore the measuring cup, and dispense the detergent directly into the drawer.  The only way it could be more convenient is if the washer had a built in detergent tank.

[wcw43921]

I'm afraid I don't have my own washer and dryer.  I need to take my clothes to a laundromat.  So for me, the pods are more convenient--perhaps not as convenient as your setup, but still.

[Cancer]

Our laundry setup resembles Old Man's.  For the dishwasher we use prewrapped tabs, and the contents of those is more caustic tha laundry stuff.

[Mister Trent]

I remember when they started requiring ID to buy spray paint on account of those nimrods who were huffing it to get high. It wouldn't surprise me if the same happen with the Tide Pods due to all the "Tide Pod Challenge" idiocy.

[Ragitsu]

39 minutes ago, Mister Trent said:

I remember when they started requiring ID to buy spray paint on account of those nimrods who were huffing it to get high.

 

Ah, yes. I found that out when I tried to pick up some acrylic black spray paint for a DIY sound shield project.

[Hermit]

49 minutes ago, Mister Trent said:

I remember when they started requiring ID to buy spray paint on account of those nimrods who were huffing it to get high. It wouldn't surprise me if the same happen with the Tide Pods due to all the "Tide Pod Challenge" idiocy.

 

Good point. I guess every generation has to do some stupid.

 

Geez, it's getting beyond "this is why we can't have nice things" and moving into "This is why we  can't even have meh things"

[Michael Hopcroft]

This is why we can;t have things.

 

I'd rather not have to go back to liquid detergent. I always ended up losing some to spillage and having it make a bit of a mess.

 

Not for the first time, I wonder whether giving the general public access to DARPA was such a good idea after all.

[Badger]

11 hours ago, Starlord said:

Every generation has its 'detergent pod eaters'.

 

Times have not become more violent.  They've just become more televised.  - Marilyn Manson 

 

Well, you always hear about how violent kids are today.  But, then, if you look you'll find some 12-year old boy in the 1890s wiping out his family because he didn't want to do his chores or something crazy like that.  (well, I don't know of any specific cases off the top of my head-but I've come across now and again of cases back in those days of children killing their parents and thinking the TV news would losing their poop rrunning that story 24 hours

[Badger]

8 hours ago, Old Man said:

Especially when most loads hardly need a full measure of detergent to begin with. 

 

Reminds me of the one 3rd shift guy at work who overloaded the breakroom's dishwasher one time.  A fun day was had, according to legend.

[Badger]

5 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

 

The pods are in a package that looks pretty much like any other Tide detergent package. Tide has been making the packaging progressively harder to open. There's a slide zipper that requires *just* the right mount of pressure on the very top while it's sliding, or the bag doesn't open (I'm betting that it's pretty much impossible if a person has arthritis in their hands). That's to prevent small kids from being able to open the bag, but it's obviously not there for some teenager who's too stupid to avoid peer pressure, or trying to show off.

 

Probably explains why my mother doesn't use them (several of her finger joints are frozen from arthritis, and I do occasionally tell her that when they say child-proof they mean her too, enter the mama glare of doom)

 

Edit: Not to mention, she has been waqshing clothes for 60 years, so she doesn't think she needs them.

 

 

[Marcus Impudite]

My folks buy the big fishbowl-shaped containers they come in at Sam's and I break the safety tabs off the lid for them. They don't have any small children or idiot teenagers in the house, so it's not an issue. They have their little dog, Misty, but thankfully the one and only time one of those pods got dropped on the garage floor she turned her nose up at it. How sad that a household pet is smarter than so many teens and twenty-somethings out there.

[Pariah]

My brother wrote on Facebook today:

 

When I was a kid, we had to go find a spoon and eat Tide right out of the box.

[Badger]

Heh, well my mother likes to tell me, that when she was a kid, her mother had to use a scrub-board.  Not sure what they'd eat there.

[Ragitsu]

Question: does the consumption of soap truly cause one to burp out bubbles like some meaty children's toy?

[Pariah]

Detergent-scented projectile vomiting, more likely.

[Cassandra]

Never underestimate human stupidity.  

 

According the William L. Shire's "The Collapse of the Third Republic" in January of 1940 instead of attacking Germany across the Rhine they tried to convince the British to bomb the Soviet Union's oil fields thinking it would cut off Germany's oil and prevent an invasion.

[lemming]

17 hours ago, Badger said:

Heh, well my mother likes to tell me, that when she was a kid, her mother had to use a scrub-board.  Not sure what they'd eat there.

I used to use one for my socks while growing up.  Though the soap my grandmother made had a decent lye component, so that would probably cause worse internal issues than a tide pod.