My colleague Paula is a very smart cookie. But frequent travel has a way of making even smart cookies crumble, or at least lose a chocolate chip once in awhile.[Note: Paula said I could share this story, for which I am grateful.]
Paula worked at the Habitat for Humanity Pascagoula site in Mississippi along with several of us from Knight Foundation. Toward the end of the week she broke out into painfully itchy hives on her face. This had never happened to her before, and she was eager to find a solution.
The hives bothered her so much that she went to the First Aid tent on site for a remedy. She was given a dose of Benadryl along with the advice not to operate any power tools. In fact, the First Aid team recommended that she go back to her hotel.
Meanwhile, another colleague asked me if I had a remedy. Perhaps she knew that, due to the size of the suitcase I typically carry, I always have a small pharmacy on hand. True to form, I had a tube of anti-itch cream. In fact, I had two.
I gave Paula the tube with more cream and hoped it would help.
It did, in more ways than one. Because shortly after our trip, Paula traveled again, this time to Washington DC. Being exhausted, she didn't look carefully at the tube of anti-itch cream and began brushing her teeth with it.
In her words, "My tongue didn't itch all day. Crazy. I travel with few cosmetics so without looking am used to grabbing the only tube which always is toothpaste. I really need the weekend off!!!"
I'm certainly glad her teeth didn't itch. I'm also glad she didn't ask for a tube of Superglue. We need her at the office, not in the hospital having her lips unsealed!
But she shouldn't be too hard on herself. I purchased the tubes of toothpaste and anti-itch cream featured in the above photo earlier today. You can see how much they resemble each other in size, shape, and color scheme. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to grab the hydrocortisone cream, squeeze it onto your toothbrush, and not realize until you were swishing around a mouthful of it that you'd made a mistake.
I'm seeing a business opportunity here for an earnest entrepreneur with a potential payoff that could surpass that of the Ginsu Knife: a combination toothpaste/anti-itch compound that perhaps also has the added benefit of improving crow's feet around the eyes. This could really be a boon to all of us business travelers who very nearly fill TSA's requisite quart-sized Ziploc bag with all of our HBA (Health and Beauty Aids).
No, Paula, far from making a mistake, you just might be onto something big. Just don't ask me for any Superglue, because I don't carry that in my pharmacy.
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