A friend gave me a snapping cold can of Coke at a guitar jam last night. What a nice thing to do. But I already had a can of Coke on the go so I decided to take it home and have it today.
I carried guitar and Coke to the van and put the pop in the drink holder under the dash. When I got home, it crossed my mind that I should put that in the fridge. But I was gripped at that moment by a sudden seizure of laziness, a first-time experience for me, and so I left the can in the holder overnight.
Today, on one of my about-town missions, I was sent through a couple of drive-throughs for hot chocolate and for coffee. With a total drink holder capacity of only two, something had to go. So, as the Coke was unopened, I removed it and put it on the floor, where it commenced to roll around. On its travels, it rolled between the two seats behind me and headed for the back.
It was pouring rain outside and in my imagination, it seemed like a spray of rain suddenly came from the back of the van to the front., some of it hitting me in the back of the head. But as this was impossible, I just chuckled.
The chuckling ended when I exited the van and opened a rear door to get my pop. The pop was still there but instead of being contained in a nice small aluminum can, it was distributed here, there and everywhere, high and low, far and wide. As the can rolled toward the back, it hit a bit of steel somewhere under the seats and a nice big puncture resulted. Because the Coke was a bit shook up from all the rolling around, the thing went off like a July 1 fireworks.
Guess how I have spent my afternoon.
So, the moral of my story is, and it is an obvious one, never accept a free can of Coke from a friend.
©2012 Jim Hagarty
