Squinx kept herself (and the rest of us) awake for several days with a cough that ramped up at bedtime, so Squeeky finally bound her off to the doctor's. Diagnosis: bronchitis bordering on "walking pneumonia."

We picked up a five-day antibiotic at the pharmacy. Comes with a tidy little syringe so you can dose it right down to the millileter.

And about six pages of fine print.

So what did I do? I read the pharmacy's label, because that's where the instructions are. Then I washed the syringe in case there's some residual melamine or influenza on it from the Croatian plastics factory. Seconds before I drew the initial dose (4 ml), I noticed this on the bottle.

Please. Have a look at all the other text that accompanies this medication.

Every lawyer and regulator thinks he's entitled to at least a paragraph, and none of them think they're to blame for overcommunication.

Yet, the net effect is, one of the most important and primary pieces of information gets the smallest and least prominent space. I'm grateful I spotted this before I gave Squinx the first dose. But I shouldn't have to be lucky to get it right.

For the record, although the bottle refers to "dry powder," the contents were not dry before I added the water. So I could have easily gotten the dosage wrong. I don't know that you can overdose on antibiotics of this type, but I do know you can get nauseous that way and have to start all over again.

remember ultraman from the '60s? I thought of him after this little episode and wondered if today we could summon him to deal with lawyers and bureaucrats. He shows up next time you've been sent to the third government office in a row with the wrong papers, or when your insurance agent points out the sentence in your policy that nullifies the only claim you've ever filed.

I bet he'd show up with his own stack of waivers.

Posted by: Michael Rittenhouse at 07:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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