‘At what point did we stop reading the directions on the box?’: A teacher reacts after a woman puts a Dulcolax suppository in her mouth

A teacher from Minnesota is going viral after sharing her disbelief over a video where a woman doesn’t read the medical instructions and swallows a suppository. Ms B (tlcwithmsb), who has been teaching for over 15 years, stitched the original clip to her own, and the Instagram and TikTok post has already racked up hundreds of thousands of views. 

The original video featured a creator in her car, seemingly wearing blue scrubs, as she mentioned she was prescribed Dulcolax for constipation. She held up the medicine box and, as she pulled out the strip, exclaimed, “That’s a pill size!! That’s my finger.” At this point, Ms B, who edited herself into the corner to show her reactions, asked, “Pill size?” She then clapped her hand over her mouth as the creator popped the suppository into her mouth.

As the video cut back to her, MS B told her audience that she has been teaching for 15 years and “every once in a while, something happens that makes me question if we’re adequately preparing our students for adulthood.” The teacher then asked, “At what point did we stop reading the directions on the box?” She said that she spends a lot of time telling teenagers to read directions and noted that even if she wasn’t informed it was a suppository, there had to be instructions and probably even a diagram.

Ms B said she thought not reading was a phase

The teacher told her audience that, even with her telling her students to read, every year she has students who get things wrong on tests or who don’t know what’s happening because they didn’t read or skimmed the instructions. She noted, “I used to think, well, they’re teenagers. They’re learning. They’ll figure it out.” 

Ms B then said that since she sees this is happening into adulthood, she was now going to make a lesson plan on following instructions. “Because apparently, the consequences of not doing so extend well beyond getting a zero on an assignment. And I would really prefer my students not to learn that lesson the hard way,” she said.

Ms B’s viewers were as shocked as she was, with many commenting that they often read the instructions repeatedly. One user shared, “I’m still reading instructions for Ibuprofen that I’ve been taking regularly for decades as if I expect them to one day change the rules for headaches…” Others expressed frustration with a general lack of reading habits, with one person noting, “No one reads anymore. Books. Directions. Texts. Emails. Signs.” 

This also led many commenters to express worry about the fact that she seemed to be wearing scrubs. There were also many viewers who wondered what happened next. As one commenter wrote, “There would HAVE to be some sort of diagram that would make you know it wasn’t oral!?” 

According to the Cleveland Clinic, suppositories are medications designed to be inserted into the rectum, vagina, or urethra, where they dissolve via body heat. They are used for various conditions, including constipation, infections, or when a patient cannot swallow oral medicine. The Cleveland Clinic stresses that it is always best to read the directions on the packaging before use. 

Attack of the Fanboy was unable to independently verify the original creator’s side of the story, as this account originates solely from Ms B’s Instagram and TikTok posts.