A Semi-Rant About Pods

I don't normally talk about serious topics here on Pleiades. However, I've been really annoyed with all of the flack Tide Pods have been getting. Most of the flack comes from consumer error rather than the actual Pods themselves.

It should be common sense to keep laundry detergent of any kind OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. Apparently, some consumers of Pods need to be whacked over the head with a big stick reading "KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN" because that bit of common sense has left their brains. Apparently a large enough number of Tide Pods consumers kept their Pods where their children could reach them and so the "dangers" of Tide Pods got media attention. With a warning label clearly stating that they should be kept out of reach of children, there should have been no danger in simply having them around for use in the laundry.

Flash forward to today... well, a couple days ago. There I am, happily scrolling through my Facebook feed when I come across an article about Tide Pods. This one has to do with a two year old supposedly squeezing a Pod and getting the detergent into his eyes. Okay, my problems with this are as follows:

1. The mother in this story apparently ignored the warning label.
2. The mother states in the article that "Two-year-olds will be two-year-olds and help mom with laundry." I understand helping out, but why the heck is your two year old having anything to do with the detergent? He's two! My mother never let us near the laundry detergent until we were old enough to understand what it was and how to handle it properly. That's not at age two, people!
3. Of course the little balloon of detergent is going to pop when you squeeze it. I can tell that just from looking at them.
4. The mother also says to let your kids do dishes, not laundry, because the pods are dangerous. I got news for you, lady, dishes can be plenty dangerous and they have pod-things for that, too.
5. The mother also says that her Pods are up really high now. They should have been there in the first place.

So the big "moral" of the story is: Keep Pods as far away from your children as you possibly can. In fact, don't buy them if you can't trust yourself or your kids to handle them properly. If you are going to have them around, do the smart thing and talk to your children about the dangers of ingesting laundry detergent of any kind. Don't EVER let small children do anything other than help you sort, fold, and shove laundry into your machines.

Also, don't blame other people, products, or companies for your user error. It's not their fault you did or didn't do something.

If you would like to read the article I talked about here, here's the link: http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/laundry-pod-dangers/?id=150483

Love ya, Jessie.