Soda Explosion

[purplecat41877]

Yesterday, I was ringing up a customer when a can of soda starting spraying out soda. I called a coworker over when the soda sprayed in my face. The customer decided she didn't want the soda so the coworker voided it while I cleaned off my glasses and a few other areas that got sprayed. Since I was the only register open at the time, other than the self checkouts, I didn't get to entirely finish until later.

[BeeMused]

RUUUUNNNNNNN!!!!!! The attack of the Soda Can!!!!!!

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I drink a lot of tonic water and seltzer.

I just open the shit up on the back deck. I've been sprayed full on in the face so many times I'm actually surprised when it doesn't happen.

I treat the stuff like it's nitroglycerine. Because it pretty much is.

[MoonCat]

I dropped a 2 liter bottle of ginger ale once in the store. It hit cap first, the cap popped, and the bottle shot across the floor like a rocket, spraying ginger ale everywhere.

The cashiers were nice enough to let me get a replacement bottle (I had already paid for it so they didn't have to). I think it was mostly due to the entertainment value and the fact that I kept apologizing for making a mess.

[wolfie]

Fun fact: When you freeze a can of soda pop, it gets VERY touchy. As the liquid begins to freeze, and expand, it can push the "pop top" open slightly - if it does, you get a geyser (I still have syrup stains on the ceiling of my truck cab from my first winter - left my sodas in the cooler, with the top open to let condensation evaporate). Also, at any stage between "no ice yet" and "frozen solid", the slightest bump (including a neighbouring can erupting) can set it off.

Fun fact #2: In a non-vented trailer, a portable heater doesn't get enough air, and goes out.

My previous carrier was too cheap to get heated trailers, instead putting portable heaters in the trailers for "keep product from freezing" loads. Load of soda pop was picked up on a Friday and brought to the yard, sent out Sunday for a Monday delivery. Trailer wasn't vented, ambient temperatures between -10 and -15 Celsius. You can guess what my co-worker found when he got to the consignee and opened the doors.

[EvilEmpryss]

I dropped a 2 liter bottle of ginger ale once in the store. It hit cap first, the cap popped, and the bottle shot across the floor like a rocket, spraying ginger ale everywhere.

A few months ago the Little Evil Prince and I were at Wally World one day when a woman dropped a two-liter like that. Thing went blasting down 20+ foot aisle, spraying cola everywhere.

She just grabbed another bottle and walked away like nothing happened.

The Evil Prince, though, wasn't about to let someone get away with making a mess and not being held accountable. I flagged down one of the workers to warn them about the mess, EP crawled down on the floor to locate the bottle lodged far under one of the shelves, and on the way out he happily pointed out the mess-maker to the workers as she pushed her cart blithely past us.

Then I had to explain to him that although the woman had done something bad by making a mess, it was unlikely that she'd get any kind of punishment. Poor kid, had trouble understanding why she should be allowed to get away without at least apologizing.

[Andara Bledin]

Poor kid, had trouble understanding why she should be allowed to get away without at least apologizing.

Awww... You went and destroyed his poor little innocence.

^-.-^

[Sapphire Silk]

Poor kid, had trouble understanding why she should be allowed to get away without at least apologizing.

That's what happens when you raise your kid to be accountable. They don't understand how other people can't be.

[Kristev]

I dropped a 2 liter. But I helped clean it up.

[Gizmo]

Fun fact: When you freeze a can of soda pop, it gets VERY touchy. As the liquid begins to freeze, and expand, it can push the "pop top" open slightly - if it does, you get a geyser (I still have syrup stains on the ceiling of my truck cab from my first winter - left my sodas in the cooler, with the top open to let condensation evaporate). Also, at any stage between "no ice yet" and "frozen solid", the slightest bump (including a neighbouring can erupting) can set it off.

Yeah, we have done that in our fridge before.

In the under counter fridge we put a pack of cokes in the top shelf just underneath the freezer box.

Well about 2 months later we got to the back of the pack and found the last can wouldn't come out. It turns out that the freezer box had been working too well and the can had been in contact with it... and frozen solid. It exploded both ends of the can and when we moved the coke box we found it was soaked with frozen coke due to the explosion. It wasn't fun trying to clear up the stains... I think some are still there!

[Andara Bledin]

If you think accidentally freezing cans of soda is fun, just set your wayback machine to when sodas were still sold in glass bottles....

Yeah, my mother and aunt, both champions at forgetting minor things like that, have had to (or, rather, made one of the kids) clean up the soda-splosion and glass shards out of the freezer.

^-.-^

[boringscreenname]

A couple weeks ago we bought a 24 pack of pop. After we got home we noticed the cardboard container was wet and sticky, so we looked for the leaky can.

We couldn't find any that were obviously the culprit. So my husband picked them up and started examining each one individually and noticed that one had a tiny pin prick in it. All the other cans were fine, so we just threw that can out and considered it a loss instead of loading all the pop back up and taking it back to the store for an exchange.

[Crossbow]

We've had our share of soda explosions, but it seems to be more common at my office for some reason. I've been here for about 5 years and I've heard of at least 10 incidents. We had a Diet Dr. Pepper can that had been in the freezer explode in the CEO's face as he went to get ice (no harm, thankfully), a Diet Coke can leap for freedom from the refrigerator and puncture its side (creating an artificially sweetened arterial geyser over everything), and my personal favorite: a 6 pack of Mt. Dew cooking off, literally.

Co-worker had a small powered cooler under his desk (just enough for a 6 pack). He put a fresh 6 pack of Dew in and went home for the weekend. Now, this cooler could also be used as a heater if you flip a switch. He knew this and was careful to make sure the switch was set for "cool." What he didn't realize was that the plug could be inserted into the back of the unit in the correct fashion or flipped. When he plugged it in, he reversed it, essentially reversing the switch. He came in Monday morning and opened the cooler.... and the cans burst one after another like gunshots.

Thankfully I didn't have to clean it up.

[wolfie]

Co-worker had a small powered cooler under his desk (just enough for a 6 pack). He put a fresh 6 pack of Dew in and went home for the weekend. Now, this cooler could also be used as a heater if you flip a switch. He knew this and was careful to make sure the switch was set for "cool." What he didn't realize was that the plug could be inserted into the back of the unit in the correct fashion or flipped. When he plugged it in, he reversed it, essentially reversing the switch.

Sounds like the maker of the cooler implemented both methods of choosing heat/cool (switch, and reverse the plug). You'd think they could put in a couple of LEDs back-to-back, so that they'd light up blue for cool and red for heat (and nothing if the cord somehow got unplugged). Great feature, and pretty cheap to implement.

[Crossbow]

Sounds like the maker of the cooler implemented both methods of choosing heat/cool (switch, and reverse the plug). You'd think they could put in a couple of LEDs back-to-back, so that they'd light up blue for cool and red for heat (and nothing if the cord somehow got unplugged). Great feature, and pretty cheap to implement.

Agreed. I don't blame him for the incident (I blame him for other things, but that's a different story). This was just a bad design.

Of course, now we can't have any coolers/fridges in our cubes, so it's kinda moot at this point. (And no, not because of this incident, although it might have contributed to it.)