Israel Update #2: Potato Eruption

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I was making a stir fry while Jalene was making her daughter's baby food in the pressure cooker. She was having a very hard time with the lid, and using her muscles to turn it open when suddenly, POP! The lid flipped off and came flying at me, and bits of steaming hot potato went spewing in every direction. I screamed bloody murder while dodging the flying hot metal disc, convinced that Jalene had been seriously burned.

When everything settled, she only had a few bits of potato in her perfectly styled hair. She stood there holding the handle of the pot, staring at the mess, still wondering what had just happened. I kept asking her if she was okay, but she didn't respond, only stared at it all. It was quite funny, the expression on her face: a mixture of confusion and defeat. Finally she just said, "I don't know how that happened..." And she let me know she wasn't injured.

When we got past the initial shock, we discovered that basically an entire potato was splattered on the ceiling, and potato purée bits were spattered everywhere on the counter, cabinets and some on the opposite wall. Ants seemed to come out of nowhere and began harvesting a potato chunk that had landed on the floor.

So Jalene started cleaning up, having to resort to using a scraper because the potato was somehow sticky. I targeted the ants. And then while cleaning, someone turned the water off. So when she opened the tap, trying to rinse the rag she'd been cleaning with, nothing came out. Poor Jalene was not having a good day. Luckily her sister, Jen, had just arrived a few minutes earlier and took over baby Ella duty. "OH... EM... GEE!" Exclaimed Jen when she saw the damage. Jalene kept saying, "Well, I learned my lesson, that's for sure!"

The water was only off for about 20 minutes. Dustin and I had to leave because we had an appointment at the bank. The potato mush clogged the sink and the two sisters had to go get draino and a plunger and plunge the thing.

It turns out, the pot was not defective, but she forgot to check the temperature gauge, which indicated that it should not be opened yet. There was a lot of conversation and movement going on, which must have distracted her from checking the gauge. So, I learned a valuable lesson today: don't ever try to open a pressure cooker when it's still hot!