Memories Exploding Into My Thoughts

Today I came home from teaching the babies to swim. Since Riley was the only one at home, of course the TV was on (hate the thing, have I mentioned?). And, like any red-blooded male, he had it tuned to Mythbusters where they were, of course, trying to blow stuff up. Because, what good is Mythbusters if they aren't blowing stuff up. Better yet? When I first walked in, they were trying to blow up a bra! ("Epic fail," reported Riley.)

They put a soda can in a kiln (yes, an oven for baking pottery that bakes to thousands of degrees) to see if it would blow up. Guess what? It does! Whoo-Hoo! One for the Mythbuster exploding team!

Which, actually, took me back a little. I actually have a story in my past about exploding soda cans. I told it to Riley, and thought I would share it with you here. I'm inspired by Bob, who frequently writes things on his blog for the grandkids. And, coincidentally enough, the exploding sodas happened at Bob's parents' lake house, where I went with Bob's daughter, Julie. Julie and I were roommates for several years in college.

Have I already told this story on the blog? Oh, well... humor me.

So, as mentioned, Julie and I went out to her grandparent's lake house. I think it may have been Labor Day weekend. Not sure, but I do recall it was HOT. There was boating, there was game-playing, there was eating, there was general frivolity, but there was definitely heat.

I THINK that was the only time I went out to the lake house, so I guess we stayed a night, maybe 2? Julie's parents, Bob and Barbara, brought some "goodies" for Julie from a recent Sam's shopping trip. A few snacks, I'm sure, and a flat of Diet Cokes I definitely remember. Barbara knows how to speak love language: Diet Coke and children's books. Love it.

I don't recall at what point we put the flat of Diet Cokes in the back of Julie's little white Civic hatchback (with the "Howdy Honda" emblem on it that always made me laugh), but evidently long enough before we left for them to warm up considerably.

I guess we put them in, then loaded stuff, maybe ate lunch, said good-byes, took grandad's pulse (it was a family tradition), what-have-you... then climbed into the car for the trek over the bumpy gravel road before we would ever find pavement, sweet pavement.

We probably weren't 100 yards down the gravel road before we heard the absolute loudest POW.shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you have ever heard. We thought the bumpy road had caused Julie to blow a tire.

"Should we turn around?" (I think we did at this point).

And again. POW.shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

"What in the WORLD???"

We were SCARED to death! It sounded like someone was shooting at us. It was SO loud, we had no idea what was going on. Every time there was a pop, we would scream, but since we weren't injured, or the car wasn't broken, we were just trying to get back to the lake house at this point. We were laughing, but quite a bit rattled, too.

I think the third POW.shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. is when my head was turned enough to see the Diet Coke geyser shooting up from the hatchback making the shhhhhhhhhh sound after the POW.

Ah. It all began to make sense now. But the sound still scared the bejabbers out of us every time it went off.

So, Bob and Barbara, and maybe even Julie's brother Rob, know that they have waved us farewell, sent us on our way, we made it about 1/4 mile away, turned around (at about 15 mph) and burst out of the car screaming and laughing and "get a towel" and "oh, my word!"

They were most bumfoozled by us, I'm sure. But probably no more than usual.

So, there is a little science project for you, boys and girls: soda cans + hot car + bumpy road = GREAT explosion. You have been warned.