You may have heard about the “Great Boston Molasses Disaster” of 1919. Twenty one people were killed by a tsunami of molasses. A 35 mph tsunami of “slow-as-molasses” molasses.
Well, today I faced a much faster foe on a much smaller scale. After a long day of work in an infectious diseases lab, I stopped by my local wine and liquor store for a box of wine. Yes, a box. I’ve gotten over the embarrassment I’m supposed to feel for enjoying boxed wine. In fact, I’d almost consider myself a connoisseur of boxed wines. They stay fresh longer, fit conveniently in any fridge and they are easy on those of us who are impecunious (“poor” for those who don’t want to look it up).
Back to the story- as I opened the box’o'wine, the spigot came loose and the force of all 5 liters of golden Chardonnay spewed forth (out of a small diameter hole, increasing it’s flow…I think Bernoulli may have had the same experience) onto me. By the time I turned the box so that the spigot faced up, I was completely soaked in wine. The inside of the refrigerator, the floor and portions of my cat, Elliott, were similarly engulfed in wine.
What I did next is or should be the natural reflex for any scientist who works with caustic, radioactive, biohazard and other things that cause rapid death would do- I stripped. We are all trained and retrained for how to respond to toxic spills and…I guess the training worked. Within seconds I had removed my clothing, watch, ID badge, wallet and shoes. I was left standing, nude, in a puddle of wine with a confused and pissed off cat staring at me.
As I set about the task of containing the spill, I noticed that the wine had splashed up to a height of 40 cm on the freezer door. That sounds like a great introductory physics problem- “18 liters of Chardonnay enclosed in an airless bag flows through a 2 cm round hole from a height of ~1.2 meters for 2 seconds. Once the wine hits the ground, how high will it go?”
I guess it wasn’t really a disaster, but it was an odd situation to be so enggrossed in cleaning up the mess that you forget your lack of clothing until you hear the words, “So, do you always do housework in the nude?” uttered. Fortunately, the words were uttered by my mother, who had just gotten home, and not some strange person. Still, my intense modesty took over and I ran to my room to don some clothing before returning to what must have been an absurd scene to come home to.
