Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I had not budgeted the time nor the energy for cleaning out the fridge today. But apparently I have a fridge that acts out when it's feeling neglected, and it decided to blow something up to get my attention.

I opened the refrigerator to grab cold water, and soda cans and jars of stuff came tumbling out and bouncing across the floor. Now I didn't remember stacking things precariously in there, so I was both perplexed and annoyed at this. It turns out a can of Diet Coke had gone kablewie, knocking over everything else on that shelf and sending frosty brown splatter all up the back of the fridge. *grrr* So I pulled stuff off and rinsed it off, and took paper towels to the inside of the fridge and, of course, the floor, because exploded sodaslush had escaped when I opened the door and more got past me while I was excavating and wiping.

A couple of months ago I was given somebody else's surplus of Coke and Lime Coke, and didn't see why I had to keep more than a few cans cold at a time, so I left most of it on the kitchen table. The late-spring heat burst one of the cans, leaving me a sticky brown puddle to discover coming home from Balticon one night. So I stuck all the soda in the refrigerator. Now I knew, and have complained here, that my aged fridge has senile dementia or something and occasionally thinks it's a freezer -- the milk and orange juice are sometimes solid instead of liquid, and the baba ganouj is sometimes crunchy -- but I didn't think it would get cold enough to freeze soda. I did have the entertaining experience of pulling out a plastic bottle of flavoured seltzer (wee bit of citrus flavour, no sweeteners) that looked perfectly ordinary, then watching the cloud of slush form at the top and extend throughout the bottle when I opened the cap. That was dramatic (and yes, yes, it did make me think of Cat's Cradle when I saw it), but I hoped the fact that it didn't start to freeze until the seal was broken and the pressure released meant that sealed containers of carbonated beverages -- most of them with more solutes than just the carbon dioxide and traces of flavour -- would remain liquid at the temperatures my confused fridge reached.

Nope. It got cold enough to pop the pop. Bleah.

I really do need to get around to doing something about it when I have a chance. Anyhow, it's clean and reloaded now. I just hope it doesn't do this again between now and the end of Pennsic.