There have been a few articles recently about a new laundry concept known as pods. The small, sealed packets contain a combination of cleaners and stain boosters which eliminate measuring and hefting large bottles and boxes around. The idea may have come after reports of products like Tide being sold as currency for drug addicts. Who would have figured that laundry detergent would be so valuable? The pods are proportioned in a colorful swirl of colors and come in fish bowl-like containers.
It now seems that children are mistaking the colorful pods for candy. Emergency rooms have seen cases of pod ingestion–as many as 250 cases, reported by news sources–and fortunately no deaths have been reported.
What interests me is that children don’t seem to know that parents don’t keep candy around the laundry area. Didn’t they wonder why the candy was so hard to open? Didn’t it taste rather strange?
Of course there was the case of the woman with the extreme addiction to laundry detergent, who was featured on a recent reality show, so maybe there is something to be said for the taste of Tide. I don’t think she ate pods.
When we were kids, school paste was the naughty non-food of choice. I also chewed tissues in my youth (clean ones). I also remember that cotton candy came in two types: the type that disintegrated in your mouth, and the kind that turned into a funky kind of chewing gum. Both tasted good and didn’t send me to the ER.
Tide (and other pod producers, I’m sure) are redesigning their containers to make them more child-proof. I think what needs to be done starts at the parenting level and instructing children that there is no food in the laundry room. I don’t even drink beverages in the laundry room, let alone stow candy. Who needs a sugar rush while folding towels, anyway?
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