I bought a small bottle of 24 Excedrin tablets the other day -- the first
aspirin I've bought in probably a couple of years -- and inside the bottle
with the tablets was a small plastic cylinder that's maybe about the height
of three Excedrin tablets and as wide as one-and-a-half tablets. Printed on
it were several very tiny words in light blue that could only be read with
a magnifying glass (at least by my middle-aged eyes), some of which were
"DO NOT EAT."

Have these things replaced sterilized cotton to take up space in pill
bottles? It's hard to believe they would put something like that in an
aspirin bottle that could potentially be swallowed by mistake. This thing
seems to me to be much more hazardous than cotton. I don't buy too many
over-the-counter drugs and wasn't sure how common these plastic things are.