We’re all sick here. My Queen, the Prince and me, not so much, thank you Linus Pauling and your massive dose of vitamin C idea. We are also about out of Dimetap for kids, so off to the store I went yesterday to get some. As I picked up the box of it, I was reminded of something that I saw about a year ago.

Parents all know that the hardest part of getting a kid to take medicine is the taste of it. That’s why our particular cough medicine works, it doesn’t taste bad. Last time I was shopping for it though, I came upon a mother and her sick kid in the grocery store. I saw her scratch the box with her fingernail and sniff it and then offer it for her kid to smell as well. A marketing genius, you guessed it, our nemesis the Design Guy, put a scratch and sniff patch on the box so people could see what it smelled like.

I warned the mother, even though it was too late for her and her kid, “You do realize that every sick kid in the county has probably already stuck their nose to that little patch?”

With widened eyes, she said, “I didn’t think of that.”

I bought the bottle that was in the very back, the one with no scratch marks on it. I’m pretty cynical in general and especially about marketing types, but this seems too evil even for marketing types. It has to be the work of the Design Guy.

E.W.

Speaking of the taste of medicine, why can’t someone make me some toothpaste that tastes like steak. Maybe Japanese steakhouse flavor with a little wasabi kicker…