That’s Rather More Warnings Than I’m Used to Seeing on Soda Bottles

My daughter went out for sushi the other night with a friend’s family (at age 9, she’s more adventurous, food-wise, than I was by 25).  She came home with a bottle of Ramune, a Japanese soft drink.  I will try to get a picture of the bottle up later, but for now, check out Wikipedia’s.  What’s hard to see in photos is that the bottle contains a marble, which is used to seal the bottle (the carbonation holds it in place).  Before drinking, the user pushes the marble into the bottle by way of a supplied plunger; the marble then hangs out in an upper part of the bottle where one challenge is to drink the soda without the marble re-sealing the bottle.  (The bottle has a little notch in the upper part that helps the user with that.)

Anyway, it struck me mostly because of all of the warnings:

WARNING

• DO NOT SWALLOW THE PLUNGER.  Throw it away immediately after opening.
• Adults should open the bottle for small children and supervise drinking.
• Do not try to remove the marble from the bottle to avoid injury. 
• Do not freeze the bottle or store it in direct sunlight.
• Do not consume if the marble is broken, missing, or descended before opening.

I’ve already written my products exam this term, but there’s all sorts of fun possibilities here…

–BC