So today, even though it's the weekend, I was planning on landing some open source contributions, but fate had other plans...
My lovely wife came up to me and asked if I could help her open a little blender thingy we bought a few months back, when she wanted to start a habit of having a daily morning smoothie.
Except, the habit had been put on pause for two weeks, and the portable blender/jar thingy was now sealed shut — smoothie still inside — and despite our best efforts, wouldn't open.
I deployed all the brute force available, twisting and turning and grunting. It wasn't really about the display of masculinity: my wife (who, in her infinite wisdom, repeatedly told me that it wasn't a big deal and that we could take care of it later) had presented me with a puzzle, and I was damned if I wasn't going to solve it.
I turned to my engineering studies: I hypothesized, that maybe the reason it wouldn't open was that there was negative pressure. I thought, maybe if I ran hot water on it, the air would expand, restoring the equilibrium, and I'd be able to twist it open.
So I did, and we heard some air hissing, which seemed to validate my initial theory. Soon the blender thing (a jar-like, at this point) would open up. We were already bracing ourselves for a foul odor. And yet, it wouldn't give.
I moved to the living room, sat down to get a better grip, and started forcefully turning clockwise and counterclockwise, to no avail, until finally, finally, it BURST OPEN, projecting a heavily fermented mix of strawberry and blueberry all over myself, the floor, the wall, the ceiling, my wife, my wife's laptop, and our VERY EXPENSIVE AND VERY OFF-WHITE COUCH.
There was pressure alright... positive pressure. And a lot of it. Of course fermentation did something — it generated gas. That baby was ready to blow, and I essentially set off a red fruit bomb in the middle of our living room.
After I was done erupting in laughter, we spent the rest of the day blotting, rubbing and otherwise cleaning the whole room.
The morale of this story is: my wife should question my hypotheses more often, also: never trust a blueberry smoothie.