I accidentally busted the seal and cap off a bottle of Tabasco chipotle coming home tonight, and it occurred to me that many of our younger readers don’t necessarily realize that we have not always lived in a state of casual ready defense against our own, homegrown poisoning terrorists.
Prior to 1982, there was to my recollection little to no anti-tampering packaging in general use. It was assumed your neighbor wouldn’t try to murder you for the thrill of seeing you randomly mousetrapped by tampered goods.
How times have changed, Sweet Pea! Now defense against your American neighbors has become the baseline, and they’re copping a feel off Granny in the airport line to try to stop the funnier-looking ones from elsewhere.
I remember that scare. Now the darn safety caps are on everything and everywhere. At least there arent any on the beer bottles yet.
Steve
We may be safe inside the airport, but takeoff and landing just got a lot hairier: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2008/07/better_than_a_panty_liner_aas.php
Fortunately, there’s MANPADS.
My recollection is that a spate of suits resulted in adult-proof… excuse me, child-proof technology on potentially toxic when ingested substances and things that can go phooomf. Unfortunately, my memory does not include where that fits into the described chronolgy, but I believe it predates* the tamper-proof motivation.
* There’s an additional pun on the “hunts as food” meaning, but it escapes me for now. ;-)
That’s ridiculous, everyone knows that only [insert today's maligned ethnic or religious group]s are terrorists. Look at what they put on their heads!
http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/17517