Chew or Swallow?

I met up with my friend Jan for brunch today. We have had a summer of not seeing each other much with her in the mountains and me at the beach teaching. With trips in opposite directions on the horizon we realized that today was our one overlap day.

Russ had so much work all weekend so Jan and I took the rare opportunity to leave our husbands at home and go out. She suggested a place in Governor’s Village called Flair. Since it is a bit away from me I had never been. I looked at the menu and thought it seemed just fine, but Jan told me she had the best goat cheese salad there she had ever had so I was in.

The place is so cute. It has the most glorious plants that turn a strip mall location into an oasis. The weather was perfect so we ate outside.

As we discussed our trips, our need to get our prescriptions refilled early and the nightmare that causes along we touched on the various ways we sort our pills. Jan is a trained pharmacist and so she always is imparting valuable wisdom to me. I mentioned that I have no trouble swallowing big pills that are oblong, but I hate big pills that are round.

Jan told me that round usually means they are chewable. WHAT? How could this important bit of information get by me until today. I looked at my selenium bottle and it does not say chewable, but it does have an outline of the size of the pill on the bottle. Is this a warning? Like, “Hey if you have trouble swallowing round pills this is going to be your nightmare.” The quarter is just for size comparison.

I don’t exactly love chewing pills, but if I am supposed to do it I will comply. Now I do not know the answer with this one. It is big enough for it to make sense that it should be chewed because swallowing it is hard, but it does not say chewable on it.

I am certain that I could find the answer, but for now I want to know, “Am I the only one who did not know that round meant chewable and all the other shapes meant swallowable?”