You Learn Something Every Day...

Though a little more intensely this morning than usual...

A few minutes ago Debbie came into my office and asked “What's that smell?”  I hadn't even noticed, but she was right – there was a smell that was a little like burned hair.  Whatever it was, we could be certain that it was Not Good.  Debbie's first thought was that our heater (which is running on this cold morning) had broken somehow.  I went on a little exploration, following my nose.

Straight to the kitchen, where some time ago Debbie had started to hard-boil four eggs.  That's some time ago, as in long enough for all of the water to long since have vaporized and for the pan and its contents to heat up enough to start decomposition at the molecular level.  The hydrogen and oxygen in some of the organic material had disassociated and gassed off, leaving mostly carbon behind.  Evil fumes were hissing out of various cracks in the former eggs.  A couple of the eggs had popped like popcorn, turning almost inside out.

I turned off the burner (which was on “high”, naturally) and carefully inspected the saucepan.  It is a very nice ScanPan, and it looked to me like it should be safe for me to pick up and take over to the sink, as the handle is very well insulated.  Our sink is stainless steel, and I planned to set the pan down into a film of nice cold water.

So I picked the pan up (sure enough, the handle wasn't hot at all) and started toward our sink.  About halfway there, there was a loud BANG! – another one of the eggs exploded, this time with the force of a large firecracker.  Tiny fragments of carbonized egg and eggshell rocketed out in all directions at hypersonic speed.  My face was covered with egg fragments, and a dozen or so shell fragments embedded themselves slightly into my skin.  Fortunately the fragments cooled a bit before they hit me, and I wasn't seriously burned by any of them – it hurts a bit and I have some red “freckles”.  Even more fortunately I was wearing my glasses, so there was no injury to my eyes (that could have been bad).

The part of the kitchen where I was standing had taken on an interesting aspect.  There were pieces of extra-hard-boiled egg everywhere.  On the floor.  On the cabinet sides and tops.  On the ceiling.  Over the entire front of my body.  In my hair. 

The dogs were quite excited about this.  They sensed an opportunity that was unlikely to repeat itself – eggs on every lickable surface.  We kept them out of the kitchen; while we cleaned up, they sat in the doorway with very sad expressions.

I finally did get the pan into the sink, and cold water eventually cooled it down to room temperature.  In the process it generated a very impressive amount of steam.  I'm not sure how hot that pan got, but it was definitely much hotter than we've ever seen before in our kitchen!  We're still not sure if the pan is salvageable – we're giving it a good soaking before we attempt to clean it...

What did I learn from all this?  Well, the most interesting thing is that eggs make a reasonably good explosive.  Who knew?!