Christmas came early for Jenn and I this year. My family is heading to La Paz, Mexico for two months, and will be gone during the "real" Christmas, so they stopped in for about 40 hours on their way west and then south.
It wasn't your average family visit (or maybe it was... family things tend to be a little odd). By the end of the night, we were all convinced that our apartment was haunted! First, while playing some card games, the glass coffee table in the middle of the room cracked and broke without anyone leaning on it! Next, about half an hour later, we heard some clattering in the kitchen. When I checked it out, the margarine had somehow bumped the refrigerator door open, and had tumbled to the floor. The fridge had been closed for hours, so it was odd that it should burst open all of a sudden. Finally, our pies acted strangely as they finished baking. I always make the crusts, and Jenn always fills them. Usually there are no problems with this process. We've made, baked, and eaten plenty of pies since living here. But for some reason, when these particular pies were baking, all of our eyes started watering. When Jenn looked into the oven, the pie crust was dripping, and the drips burst into flame when they fell onto the element on the bottom of the oven! Jenn exclaimed, "It's like something toxic is in them!" After going over the ingredients, I realized the only oddity was that I used
tap water instead of bottled water this time. We all know how bad Caronport water is -- it tastes so irony, and dries out the skin. But can it really cause a pie crust to drip flammable drops? Only science can know.
Whatever was the cause, it didn't the keep the pies from tasting good or from being eaten. It was great fun having family here, even if the occasion brings with it inexplicable phenomena ...
