pressure cooker

Writing | January 27, 2010

In our refrigerator there was a bottle of apple cider from the boy's school. It was pressed way back in September when the harvest was at it's peak. We don't drink juice or well, we don't drink anything but water and seltzer, oh and I just started drinking wine again but that is another story all together. Anyway, the bottle has been in the fridge for almost 5 months. I was thinking way back in September that we would have a guest, a thirsty guest and that person would be excited to drink it or it would be good baked into a dessert but neither of those things happened. We all had a nip in the first days of having it and I seem to remember someone having a full glass. The bottle which came home on the bus, an ocean spray bottle, was more than 3/4 of the way full.

I tried to throw it away 3 months ago. I had opened it and it smell like vinegar but I was told to leave it because it was still good. I was told it would be used. After 4 months I gingerly moved it to a less used space in the fridge and noticed it was a little puffy. It had gone way past hard cider and into the realm of controlled dangerous substance. I think it would have caused hallucinations or at least a soul death. It was on my nerves every time I opened the door. I kept thinking about the room it was taking up and what I could replace it with. A few more days and I decided that I would be getting rid of it soon. I started making my plan, sorting out if it would have to go outside and wondering what a good stomp on it would do. I took comfort in knowing it was only a matter of time and it would be gone.

Yesterday the day came. In the morning when I was making breakfast and getting lunches together which requires a gazillion trips in and out of the fridge I started to plan in earnest. It would all come together when the last kid left with the carpool to school. It was now to the point that I was afraid of the bottle. It was so puffed up that it could be considered a dangerous weapon. I was afraid of the leftover chicken offending it and the cider blowing up and spreading it sticky neurotic spoil on all of our food.

The last child out the door and Opal, my toddler secured in the playroom I went to the fridge and carefully with the steady hand of an explosives specialist I removed the bottle and placed it into the sink. It was a harrowing journey those 4 feet. I should have worn protective goggles but I made it. I left the puffy danger and went to help Opal. We played and went out to do a few errands. I forgot about the bottle. I am not sure how I could have forgotten after the drama around it but it happened. I came home from the shops and put groceries away and changed a diaper it was nap time so upstairs we went.

In an earlier post I mentioned the flooding and the sump pump debacle so yesterday I was feeling a little edgy and listening close to the noises of the house. I was upstairs, Opal asleep in my arms, aware of the wind, trucks passing and a man working on the trolley tracks across the street. It had been an emotional morning and I had the "what's next" feeling. And then it came. A loud pop like a gunshot. I jumped. The baby remained asleep with baby sleep super powers. Classic sleeping through a sound like a gunshot but you try and move a blanket in the same room and wide awake. I got up to investigate. I went into every room. I looked at all of the windows of which there are many. Perplexed, I could find no answer. I went back upstairs shaken and uncertain.

The day went on like any other. I was bothered by not knowing the source of the noise but it eventually faded. Late in the afternoon I made my way to the sink to do the dishes in preparation for dinner making and there it was. The cider had exploded. A huge piece was missing from the bottle and there was cider all over the dish drain and the cabinets. It went high up the wall and I was glad I wasn't close by to be hit and I am glad it didn't happen in the fridge although I was told that the explosion was most likely caused by the agitation of moving it. What if I have opened the lid, it would have been a geyser of apple hooch in the face or what if one of the kids agitated it while putting away the rice milk. I was impressed.

I had unleashed a lot of pressure that morning with a good dose of truth and it was messy and as it goes in my world some action in the day is an acting metaphor of my heart and mind. I have a little clean up to do but only cider, the other clean up not so much my work.