Witz DOESN'T Pick: Soy Sauce Disaster!

Life can change in an instant. One moment, you have all the soy sauce you could ever possibly need, and the next moment...just some empty, shattered glass.

What happened was this: I had opened the refrigerator to get almond butter for my toast and orange juice for my glass. As I lifted out the juice, the entire door shelf gave out and everything fell about 18 inches to the cold, lifeless tile. The salad dressings were ok. The parmesan cheese was ok. Unfortunately, the door also contained a bottle of soy sauce that would make Costco say, "Who would ever need that much soy sauce?" Which is why, as the absurdly brittle glass shattered on the tile, and an ocean of salty dipping sauce began taking over my kitchen floor, my first thought was, "I'm going to need a lot of sushi."

My second thought was more reasonable, and involved paper towels, so I put that thought into action and stopped the flow of soy sauce with a series of paper towel walls. I took pause as two thoughts went running through my mind. For the first time ever, I had the opportunity to think, "Holy shit, Bounty paper towels are just as effective and absorbent as they advertise," which is a real solace in this world of lies and uncertainty. My second thought was, "My toast is getting cold."

Now here's the thing about the toast-- ordinarily, I would just make more toast and not think twice about it, except these were my last two pieces of bread and if I didn't eat them, well, who knows where my next jail-themed breakfast would come from (You see, lately, my daily routine has been a lot like being in prison; I eat bread and drink water for breakfast, then I go to the gym for a while, and then I pray that I don't get raped in the shower-- and most days I don't. So, not getting to eat the toast for breakfast would really throw off my routine, and who knows what kind of chaos would then ensue). I went to my toast and felt the slight warmth still emenating from the grains. I looked back over my shoulder at the New Orleans-like disaster and my makeshift levees keeping the soy sauce from flooding the rest of the floor. In that instant, I knew what it must have felt like to be a Katrina Relief volunteer, and with a last glance at my toast, I turned to the soy sauce and headed once more into the breach.



It was crazy: paper towels, sponges, anything I could get my hands on to soak up some of the liquid (actually, it was just paper towels and sponges), salad dressing stranded in a sea of soy, waiting to be rescued, cleaned, and given proper care and shelter. Parmesan cheese, too far gone to be saved, given a proper burial (I threw it like a jump shot across the kitchen into the trash can-- made it!), news of its death passed along to its next of kin (there was another parmesan cheese container still in the fridge-- the first one was pretty much empty, so it wasn't that big a deal. It was like a really really old person with a terminal illness dying in a plane crash-- sad, but not exactly tragic, and just because there's an air-jet right above your head doesn't mean you can fart like you're doing yoga in your basement when in reality you're in the middle seat of a plane, Old Person-- it's called Karma). Glass was everywhere, danger lay just beneath the surface, a looter went by stealing clothes (either that or my roommate got his laundry out of the dryer), rioting was...at a bare minimum. It was crazy.

Eventually, the mess was cleaned up and everything was as it appeared before. Except, the refrigerator shelf is still poorly built, glass bottles still exist, and while we might feel at ease for the moment, we all know it could happen again. As for me, well, I finally went and ate my toast, and you know what? It tasted even better because I had-- no, you know what, I can't do that. I can't. The toast was cold and awful and even after I slathered it with almond butter, it was still cold and hard and I'll be honest, I'm a little cranky because of it. That's usually how you know you've done the right thing.

I Can Never Predict the Impact Spilled Liquids Will Have On Grout, But I Am Always Terrified That the Impact Will Be Irreversible and DISASTROUS,
Witz