Funniest/weirdest product goof you've seen here

[DrChrisHE]

Must make you feel good to be so patronising - when you can fly back to the USA/Canada and be cocooned in smug hypocrisy.

I'm not sure who you are aiming to p-o with this comment, but IF you read my thread from the beginning, you'll see that this is a way of COPING for those of us who for one reason or another don't have the luxury of importing all our things perfectly. Many of us are here as legal residents, living, working and schooling our families. Yes, we CHOSE to come to the DR with our 3 boys (9, 12, and 17) but we don't have the jet set lifestyle you seem to think all Americans have here. One reason we chose to live here is for our children to learn Spanish and see what life is really like in a developing country. I volunteer ALL my time at a local orphanage clinic when I could be earning a 6-figure salary in the US. Yes, my Dh works here, but not at US wages (better than DR but certainly not what he was making in the US even cost adjusted.) Our children go to school in San Pedro and I make frequent public health "house-calls" to the batays. Our eldest volunteers his time at the orphanage in between schooling and when he is going off to study in the university in the US.

I suggest that you come and spend a day with me helping at the orphanage prior to making such snotty comments.:bunny::bunny::bunny:

 

[DrChrisHE]

Well I guess we can add "Iodized Salt" which is NOT iodized to this list as well. We checked all three containers that we've bought here per the DR1 newsletter today, and NONE had iodine.

 

[Chirimoya]

Must make you feel good to be so patronising - when you can fly back to the USA/Canada and be cocooned in smug hypocrisy.

Sweetie, you need to lighten up. This is no different from lists of products and slogans in any country that can be read differently by foreigners. Like calling a car 'Nova', 'Bimbo' bread, 'Bum' crisps, etc.

Company Naming That Is As Funny as It Wants to Be: Name Wire: The Product Naming Blog
Rubbish Cars We Love: Vauxhall Nova – Means ‘Doesn’t Go’ in Spanish. Figures. - Hecklerspray: Music, Movies, TV, Celebs, Games and Gossip

 

[Adrian Bye]

We've bought plenty of electric gas lighters which don't light.

A great thread DRChrisHE! I wonder if we should be concerned about buying medicine here?

 

[juanita]

At the gym while you workout they show their advertising on TV of this bald fat man (no it?s not AZB) seating on the loo, he starts to panic looking around for toilet paper and boom?under the door comes a helping hand wearing a wristband with the Body Shop logo and a roll of paper, then the slogan, ?We help you, know you, serve you!? :cheeky:

 

[Charlielyn]

Last March I bought a hot plate at Casa Nelson. Being new to the system, I didn't open the box until I got back to the apartment. Of course, it was broken. Thank goodness my taxi driver was a good friend and went back to the store with me to exchange. When I got there, the sales guy was with a customer who also wanted to buy a hot plate. They had them plugged in to make sure they worked before leaving the store. This was a very important lesson to me. We must have opened 6 boxes before we found one that wasn't broken. I also know to plug in things before you leave the store.

 

[DrChrisHE]

Medicines in the DR!! OYE

We've bought plenty of electric gas lighters which don't light.

A great thread DRChrisHE! I wonder if we should be concerned about buying medicine here?

Thanks for the kudos.

Oh yes you SHOULD be concerned...VERY!! One independent estimate (I'll see if I can dig out the reference) states that 50% of the pharmaceuticals here either (1) don't have what they say they have in them; (2) have too much or too little of the active ingredient; (3) are re-dated after they expire (ALWAYS check your expiration dates PRIOR to leaving the counter); (4) are adulterated with some potentially harmful substance; and/or (5) have been rejected or recalled from another country!!

The humor in this (IF there is any) is that even in the medical schools here they TEACH the students that the meds here are unreliable. When I speak with med students they confirm this time and time again.

One story (funny to me and did become a blessing but I'm so sure initially thought of that way)...a woman we know from the North Amer swears she got pregnant because of the DR birth control pills she bought. She'd religiously taken them and not had any other meds that might have lowered the effectiveness.

I became seriously ill after switching to a DR-purchased med that I must have to live. After switching back to my US "back stash" I recovered. I tried to switch over again, with the same results. I paid 5000 pesos for this med too!! My endocrinologist had the meds tested at two labs and they found that the medication (fludrocortisona) had ZERO percent of the drug actually in it. Without this in my system, I would die over a period of days. So, I take the medication thing VERY seriously and caution everyone.

At the orphanage, our best meds come from: Canada, US, Germany, Italy and the UK. Whenever people come to visit, they bring us suitcases full. The antifungal (same generic name) we'd used from here does NOTHING, but within 2 weeks on the Canadian one, kids began responding. It's sad but true.

 

[DrChrisHE]

Snail slime

At the gym while you workout they show their advertising on TV of this bald fat man (no it?s not AZB) seating on the loo, he starts to panic looking around for toilet paper and boom?under the door comes a helping hand wearing a wristband with the Body Shop logo and a roll of paper, then the slogan, ?We help you, know you, serve you!? :cheeky:

Ah...thanks for the reminder Juanita. Have you seen the info-mercials on snail slime for cosmetics? They are hysterical. Supposedly the slime is a cure-all for acne, scars, stretch marks, wrinkles...I think they even said baldness. While at Jumbo one day I saw a stand for Crema de Caracol and bought some (I've got a fair number of scars)...it does NOTHING even when faithfully applied and smells awful if you ask me. To my knowledge snail slime is only available like this in Latin America. Clearly, I was the sucker on this one

 

[Chris]

One independent estimate (I'll see if I can dig out the reference) states that 50% of the pharmaceuticals here either (1) don't have what they say they have in them; (2) have too much or too little of the active ingredient; (3) are re-dated after they expire (ALWAYS check your expiration dates PRIOR to leaving the counter); (4) are adulterated with some potentially harmful substance; and/or (5) have been rejected or recalled from another country!!

This needs to placed in perspective as again, this information may simply serve to scare people, and not educate them.

Even with limited needs for medication, this was not our experience in the DR. I cannot remember that I ever bought something serious for myself (healthy and mostly into alternative medical therapies) but anything I needed and bought worked. My granddaughter with 'normal' childhood things (ear infection and tummy stuff) dealt well with any medication that she was required to take. My husband never complained about any medication. My son actually received excellent medical advice for a long-standing problem that he has. We used Doctors and pharmacias from the Capital (sudden earache that someone had), through to the North Coast, Santiago and Mao Valverde.

So, again, let us put information in good perspective. Factually telling people what to look out for, and scaring people are two different things.

So, how should people select any medication that they require to decrease the chances that it is from an old batch, or simply bad? DrChrisHE, you and I have had this conversation before - Kindly educate, and don't fearmonger! And I would appreciate that independent study. Please spend the time and dig out the reference.

I just saw this on a post from today. Thought it was topical.

... My daughter got a bad rash and I went to the farmacia and showed the woman with the white robe. She sold us a cream and the rash was gone in two days....

 

[DrChrisHE]

DVD rentals: try watching the bonus features on some and they have nothing to do with the actual feature presentation.

Yup--this is a funny 'feature'...adds to the adventure of living here.

Reese...do you actually RENT them? The video "rental" store (the biggest one) in SPM has rentals but they are all a couple of years old. We were clued in by a friend over a year ago that the BEST movies are behind the counter. Lately they've actually gone to printing a catalog of all the latest movies (some before they hit the theaters in the Cap) available for purchase. BTW, the price of a rental is the SAME as for the purchase We came here thinking it was just wrong and have adapted to realize that if we were going to see anything, it would have to be that way. For awhile I used to have real-as in the kind sold by the film companies-- DVDs shipped from the US but at least 75% of them disappeared before they got to me via dh's office. So I figure I've about broken even.

Btw, I LOVED your comment on the operating manual!

 

[DrChrisHE]

Matching fleece toilet seat cover, slippers & rug?

One more "interesting" product, although I'm not sure it fits the "goof" category. Dh and I were shopping in the Cap this weekend and I was roaming around. In the bath decor section I saw something hysterical (should have taken a photo): MATCHING fleece bath mat with coordinated Slippers and Toilet seat cover (as in the actual seat--it was a circular cover for the part one puts one's bum on while doing their bathroom business). Is it just me, or does a fleece cover in that area (not to mention the matching slippers) seem a bit ridiculous? I thought of the rash thread and couldn't help but laugh out loud. Oh yes...forgot...one had a choice of animal themes too: cow, elephant, pig, etc. but the slippers were definitely NOT children's sized!
paz y salud,
DrChrisHE:bunny::bunny::bunny:

 

[El_Uruguayo]

hmmm... intimate parts wash with a very strong mint smell and ehm... feeling. given in caba?as. it was suggested by lambada it might have been mouthwash. yeah. re-bottled and re-packed.
one man's mouthwash is another man's, woman's, p***ywash...

I heard straight from the horses mouth, the owner of a ?pharmaseudical?company that he does this, sells mouth wash under a different label as an ?intimate wash?. No joke, he was quite proud of this too.

 

[Chirimoya]

Listerine... don't try this at home, girls!

 

[DrChrisHE]

Douches and Hair Relaxants

Listerine... don't try this at home, girls!

Ee-gads...Now I'm going to have to go look at bottles of Listerine (which I despise the taste of) to see if it has one of those funky labels: Do not use in a manner other than intended...blah blah blah...use of this product for other means is a Federal offense.

On this topic, I've never seen a country that has so much aisle space devoted in supermarkets to hair relaxants and douches. From a health perspective 95% of the douches are not only useless but actually harmful. Moreover, I LIKE curly hair. A woman my dh knows spends two hours each morning relaxing her hair (she really hates it when it rains). He inquired as to why she did this...her reply was that she hates it when her "hair looks all Latina and everything." <Direct quote so no fair critiquing my use of the ethnicity.> Go figure! I've spent decades trying to get my baby fine straight hair to curl and I'm now in a culture that strives for that look. All I know is that whatever we do to our hair (straighten or curl), the humidity wrecks havoc on it and nature WILL have her way. One of the funniest ads here is for a hair relaxer that has a woman with HALF a head of very bushy hair and the other side straight. The first time I saw it I would have sworn that the goal was to go from the straight to the curly! It's all in your perspective

 

[Chris]

Listerine... don't try this at home, girls!

Awe weeh! 'Tis good!

 

[Lambada]

I heard straight from the horses mouth, the owner of a ?pharmaseudical?company that he does this, sells mouth wash under a different label as an ?intimate wash?. No joke, he was quite proud of this too.

And did you know that it started out accidentally? Someone read 'no trague' on the bottle so assumed it was for the.....er other end.

 

[catcherintherye]

So guys, I take it, can kill two birds with one stone, as it were? Sounds like a good deal.

 

[DOMINCAN BOY]

So guys, I take it, can kill two birds with one stone, as it were? Sounds like a good deal.

 

[Talldrink]

I wanted to buy a spot cream at the pharmacy and when I checked the expiry date (how American of me, so I am told) it was about to expire within the next few weeks. The lady insisted that the date doesnt matter, given the fact that I only need a little tiny bit for it to work.

I just looked at her blankly because her words were the basis of my argument. Given the fact that I will only need a little bit, then it will last alot longer and will need to last way after the expiration date! Well, she couldnt get over how 'petty' I was and how anal I was about "the little details" as if!! LOL

 

[Talldrink]

..... Dh and I DrChrisHE

What is DH???