Okay, so this happened:

I was sitting here reading the erudite postings of fellow Lizards when suddenly there came a loud “Squeee!!” from the kitchen. I thought that it might be a rat grabbed by an owl, but then I thought, “I have neither owls nor rats in the kitchen.” Next thought:

I just lost a water pipe!

Oh, shit. I run into the kitchen and fluids are indeed spraying into the underside of one cabinet.

She Who Must Be Obeyed makes homemade ginger beer in the summer. It is slightly alcoholic and tremendously refreshing in the Texas heat, over ice. We got some quart bottles that look like big Grolsch bottles (lever mechanisms, ceramic caps and rubber grommet seals), and the internal pressure of the fermenting beer had pushed a seal out of its seat. SWMBO is in Houston this weekend doing rehearsals for an upcoming gig, BTW.

Squeee!!!

So I grab the bottle, and put it in the sink and put may hand over it until it settles down. Then I decide (forgetting the first rule of pressure vessels, that just because the pressure relief valve has closed, that there is no more pressure in the vessel) that I need to reseat the seal. So I unlock the mechanism to do so.

And had a pint of mostly fermented ginger beer erupt into may face. Haha! The joke (and the beer) was on me! By the way, raw ginger shot up your nose at a significant velocity makes you snort and perform a St. Vitus Dance around the kitchen.