Dispensing a Tic Tac seems like a pretty simple task, but recent reports suggest there could be more to extracting the tiny breath mints from their containers than some initially thought.
Some users are arguing that the small, oval-shaped compartment found within Tic Tac containers -- look under the flap at the top of the container -- is a design function meant to allow people to extract a single breath mint in one easy move.
Theoretically, this could prevent a person from shaking the container, pouring the Tic Tacs and getting zero of the mints, or in some cases, way more than a handful.
But if the design feature is intentional, Tic Tac hasn't exactly done a great job of publicizing its existence in advertisements.
Several Tic Tac commercials have depicted people holding Tic Tacs, or even eating them, but few actually show someone extracting the mints from the container. In one commercial, in which the actor does dispense a Tic Tac before eating it, he does so using the typical pour-into-the-palm method, as opposed to using the "hidden" crevice.
9gag.com posted a photo tutorial about the compartment several months ago, and since then, the Tic Tac extraction mechanism has been featured on sites such as BuzzFeed and Mashable.
Though the discovery of the tiny compartment could be deemed interesting, it remains to be seen whether it will be eye-opening enough to wow people in quite the same way the ketchup holder fan-out function did earlier this month.
The small, paper condiment containers have folds that can expand out to allow a cheeseburger to be dipped into the ketchup with ease. (Yes, really!)
"I can barely look at myself in the mirror for doing it incorrectly my entire life," wrote the author of the post on Foodbeast.
Apparently there's also a right way, or rather, a less annoying way to use aluminum foil: Many companies put lock tabs in place on the sides of the foil boxes so that the roll won't all come out at once.