Retarded experiments, from the archive

I have a pretty strong curiosity. I wonder about something, then obsess about it until I find an answer. Been that way my whole life. In these wonderful days of the interwebs, I can usually find an answer pretty quick. But sometimes, there are questions that mankind has yet to answer. This leads me to doing some pretty stupid things, which I like to call Retarded Experiments.

For example, one time in high school chemistry class, we were doing some experiment that involved these little beads. Calcium something-or-other. These things were super absorbent, and if you left them sitting out, they would get little pools of water around them from absorbing the moisture from the air.

So the young curious Umbrella was wondering something. No, not what would happen if you stuck them up your ass. But now that you mention it... No, I wondered what would happen if you immersed them in water. This had the potential for awesome written all over it. I asked my teacher, and he said, "Why don't you try it and see?"

Hell yeah. This is why chemistry class ruled. You could blow shit up. So I grabbed some of the beads, and put them in a beaker with some H2O (that's water for you non-geniuses).

They just sat there. No explosions. No boiling. Nothing.

That was anti-climatic. But, what would happen if you put them in hydrochloric acid? My teacher was on the other side of the room, but I'm sure he would have said, "Why don't you try it and see?" So I did.

It happened instantaneously. I didn't know so much smoke could come out of such a small beaker. Plus, it was pretty stinky. I was praying it wasn't toxic, and had to get rid of the evidence. I quickly dumped it down the sink, and turned on the water.

This just made everything worse. At this point, the gig was up. The room was full of this smoke, and we were forced to evacuate. Just one of my many one-day suspensions in the science wing of the school.

However, that's not a true Retarded Experiment. Most average people don't have access to hydrochloric acid and whatever those beads were. No, a true retarded experiment can be conducted by any idiot with an unhealthy imagination. And alcohol. Usually a lot of alcohol is involved.

The one I want to discuss happened at a tailgate. We were drinking, grilling, throwing the football, and generally having a good time. It was starting to get close to kickoff, so it was clean up time. We were getting ready to dump the coals from the grill, when I wondered...

What would happen if you put an unopened ketchup package on hot coals?

We had forgotten to bring ketchup to this tailgate, so someone had made a run and taken some from a nearby McDonalds. I asked my question aloud, and suddenly, everyone wanted to know the same thing. In my mind, I could see the ketchup getting hot, boiling, pressure building inside the packet, and then BOOM, an awesome explosion of molten ketchup flying everywhere. This was gonna rule!

Now I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid. I know that molten ketchup will probably hurt like hell. So I made sure everyone stood back a bit. I didn't want my curiosity to maim anyone but me. I threw a packet on the coals, and waited for the awesome to begin.

I waited. And waited. And waited some more. No explosion. Apparently, whatever they use to seal the package shut has a lower melting point than the boiling point of ketchup. So all it did was ooze ketchup all over the coals. You could feel the disappointment hanging in the air.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing hanging in the air. One thing I didn't account for is what ketchup burning on hot coals smells like. It's hard to describe, but my guess is that if Satan was lactose intolerant, and ate a bunch of lasagna, this is what his toilet would smell like. Horrible. Now everyone was pissed because these stink molecules were stuck in their noses.

To this day, I'm not allowed to get near the grill with ketchup. And that happened over five years ago.