The other day I had a mild headache and searched my house for Tylenol, the gentle analgesic that often can head off my headaches before they attain anything like migraine status. Every single bottle of the lovely stuff was empty or expired. This situation has not occured in years! Therefore, the next day, as I grocery-shopped, I bought a bottle full of generics, carefully comparing price (do you know the ‘gel-tabs’, covered in gel and shaped like a fat UFO, are roughly half the price of the same dosage of ‘gel caps’, covered in gel and shaped like a submarine? I do not understand your Earth Logic!) before buying.

Whilst carrying my grocery bags in in the customary overloaded, flustered manner of a woman in a comedic movie, the box of gel-tabs fell to the back seat of my car, where I left them, as I needed to top up my work supply, in any case. They were there a few days, before, preparatory to a little tour of wineries, my husband and I madly cleaned my pit of a car. Today was the first day I needed Tylenol, and I grabbed up the unopened box on my way to the car.

At work, provided with a cookie to push down the pills, I tore open the box, pulled off the lid, and spent five minutes teasing off the tamper-proof seal. Hmm, that’s funny, they save money by not putting in cotton-wool, I thought, never noticing the strangely incongruous lack of rattle as I made the observation. I upended the bottle into my hand. Still no rattle. No rain of tiny Tylenol lookalikes. I peered within. The bottle was full. I swished it experimentally. The pills budged not. I have melted a jar of painkillers together. I guess I better go back to the grocery store.