Manhattan Special
I went to BevMo on my lunch break to buy some white wine, rye whisky, bitters, and Kahlua. Heading towards the checkout I passed the soda shelves and noticed something called Manhattan Special, an espresso coffee soda. "That looks like a tasty and refreshing beverage" I thought, and placed a bottle in my shopping basket. I paid for my purchases, left the store, and put the bottles in the back of my car underneath the sun-shade that I cut from a roll of Reflectix insulation. Remembering that soda with the promise of tasty refreshment I took it out of the bag, closed the hatch (my car is a hatch-back), and sat in the drivers seat. After closing the door and starting the car I grasped the glass bottle of Manhattan Special firmly around the base with my right hand, and wrapped my left hand around the neck of the bottle with my thumb and forefinger gripping the beer bottle style cap.
I twisted the cap.
Instantly a fizzing brown fountain appeared in my tiny car (a 1986 Honda Civic) as the contents of the bottle erupted between my fingers which were now trying desperately to cram the cap back on the bottle, but those beer bottle style caps don't screw back on easily in any situation, and especially not in the face of a gusher that looked like a miniature version of an early oil strike. I desperately wanted to get it out of the car, but removing a hand from the bottle to open the door would release the pressure even more, although in hindsight if I hadn't been trying to restrict the flow it might not have squirted so far and I might have been able to get the overflowing bottle to somewhere it wouldn't cause as much damage. It's easy to think clearly after the fact. After what felt like a couple of minutes, but was certainly only a couple of seconds, the geyser subsided and I got the door open and held the dripping bottle of Manhatten Special outside while I surveyed the damage. Sticky brown liquid dripped from the headliner, the sun visors, the steering wheel, my glasses, the inside of the drivers door and, worst of all, the inside of the door window where it ran down inside the door, meaning that I will have to dismantle the door and clean inside it or have sticky smears on the car window every time I wind it down and up again.
The moral of this story is: always open your soda outside!
I twisted the cap.
Instantly a fizzing brown fountain appeared in my tiny car (a 1986 Honda Civic) as the contents of the bottle erupted between my fingers which were now trying desperately to cram the cap back on the bottle, but those beer bottle style caps don't screw back on easily in any situation, and especially not in the face of a gusher that looked like a miniature version of an early oil strike. I desperately wanted to get it out of the car, but removing a hand from the bottle to open the door would release the pressure even more, although in hindsight if I hadn't been trying to restrict the flow it might not have squirted so far and I might have been able to get the overflowing bottle to somewhere it wouldn't cause as much damage. It's easy to think clearly after the fact. After what felt like a couple of minutes, but was certainly only a couple of seconds, the geyser subsided and I got the door open and held the dripping bottle of Manhatten Special outside while I surveyed the damage. Sticky brown liquid dripped from the headliner, the sun visors, the steering wheel, my glasses, the inside of the drivers door and, worst of all, the inside of the door window where it ran down inside the door, meaning that I will have to dismantle the door and clean inside it or have sticky smears on the car window every time I wind it down and up again.
The moral of this story is: always open your soda outside!