On The Side

Today I learned something.  While working from home, one of the cats was being stupid as usual and batted something off the kitchen counter onto the floor.  Naturally, I went to go clean it up and when I picked up the mess, I was surprised to see water on the floor.

"Where did this water come from?"  I opened up the lower cabinets and immediately suspected the coffee maker that’s been sitting under there for months.  But that didn’t make any sense, surely I would have drained the water tank before I put it away and even if I didn’t, why would something start leaking now?

I started pulling things out of the cabinets, which prompted the cats to get in the cabinets… ugh.  And what I found to be the source of the wetness was a 12-pack of 7-UP.  I pulled the box out and went to the sink and started removing cans.  One can was noticeable hissing.  Its seal had broken.  And there was a second can that was deflated as well.  What the fuck!

I cleaned up the drained sugar water from inside the cabinet and went to pull out the other 12-packs I had in storage under there.  Oh no.  This has happened before, and somehow, I never noticed it.  Two cardboard boxes were absolutely covered in black mold.  Excising the contents showed that two of the cans had broken seals, who knows how long ago.

I got out the Lysol and removed all the mold from the inside of the cabinets.  Unfortunately, the soda never drained out onto the floor where I could see it, so that means it all went under the cabinets.  Someone’s going to be in for a surprise when they remodel that kitchen.

But here’s the lesson.  The 12-packs, also called fridge packs, like this:

This is not how they get stored.  You have to turn them onto their sides, so the cans remain upright.  Maybe the soda ate through the seal opening (I wouldn’t be surprised), or maybe the seal just failed from age or poor quality.  In either case, had the can been upright, the carbonation would have just escaped and the can would be depressurized.  But, with the can on its side, as pictured, well, that liquid is going to go somewhere.  And I found out the hard way.

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