Those Safety Seals Are Out of Control

I just wanted to do the dishes. Okay, so I didn't want to do the dishes. The dishes needed to be done. I was not expecting to end up in a fight with the bottle of dishwasher soap additive.

I thought it was a pretty simple task. I loaded the dishwasher, and I got out a little pod of dishwasher soap to put into the machine. (Yes, the pods are similar to those Tide Pods people use for their clothes.) (No, I have never tried to eat one of the dishwasher soap pods. I'm not stupid.) (Yes, I am stupid. But I'm not that stupid.) (Yes, I keep the dishwasher soap pods out of reach of the children.) (No, I don't think they would try to eat them, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.)

Unfortunately, for our combination of dishwasher and hard water, we need to add a "dish detergent booster" in with the dishwasher soap pod, or our dishes end up with spots and hard water stains on them. I had finished off a bottle of the stuff on my previous load of dishes, so I needed to open a new bottle.

Lemi-Shine Dish Detergent Booster!
(It works...if you can actually get into the bottle.)

Easier said than done.

"Tear Here," it says.

The lid had some plastic all the way around it, making it impossible to open the bottle. There was a spot on the plastic which was labelled, "TEAR HERE." Unfortunately, there were no perforations at the "TEAR HERE" mark (or anywhere else along the top of the plastic), so it was difficult to tear at the "TEAR HERE" mark--or anywhere else.

I couldn't tear where it said, "TEAR HERE."

Since I was unable to tear anything at the "TEAR HERE" mark, I had to get out a pair of scissors and cut the top of the plastic near the "TEAR HERE" mark. Once the plastic was cut a little bit, I was able to tear the rest of the plastic covering off of the lid. I popped open the pouring spout on the top of the bottle, hoping to pour some of the product into the dishwasher. Nope! There was a seal under the lid. (I thought I was opening some dishwasher detergent additive. It had more seals than Sea World!)

Another seal.

In order to get to the seal that was under the lid, I first needed to remove the entire lid. I wasn't sure if it was a twist-off or a pop-off lid. I tried popping, but ended up twisting it off.

Take the lid off to get to the seal.

Once I got the lid off, it was time to remove the inner seal. Some seals have a pull tab on them to help you remove the seal. This one did not. Some seals have three little tabs around the edge which can be used to grab and pull the seal off. This one did not. It was just one solid seal.

Sealed for your protection. (And aggravation.)

Thankfully, there was a little bit of the seal hanging out over the edge of the bottle, just enough that I could get a grip on it with a pair of pliers and remove it.

Seal removal!

Once I got this seal off, I was worried there might be yet another seal to deal with. Nope! I could actually get to the product! Now, all I had to do was put the lid back on, open the pouring spout, and add my dish detergent additive to my dishwasher.

Ready to pour!

Yes, I was finally able to wash my dishes! And all I needed was a pair of scissors, a pair of pliers, and twenty minutes of my life that I'll never get back. But hey, it was worth it because I can do my dishes with the peace of mind of knowing that no one was able to tamper with my dish detergent additive.