Oraaaaaange juuuuuuuice!

If I’m ever found mysteriously dead in my apartment, you’ll know why: it was the orange juice.

Perhaps orange juice is strange to have as a nemesis, but a can seems to have elected itself mine. To explain: I made a recipe that called for however many cups of orange juice, and I bought a can of concentrate. Since I don’t really drink juice, I scooped out half the concentrate and only mixed that much up, rather than have half a pitcher sitting around in my fridge for an extended period. I smashed the top metal circle back on the can and slotted it away in the freezer.

There the orange juice sat, quiescent, for some time. Perhaps it was gathering strength, or perhaps strange vapors warped its once innocent orangey personality over time. In either case, it first came to my attention when I started finding sticky drips on my tupperware, mysterious in source. I tracked it down, and found the can had tipped enough for orange to ooze out, with the slow inevitability of glaciers conquering North America. I set it carefully upright, but that couldn’t fix the space squeeze that had tipped it in the first place. It teetered now, the edge of the bottom metal circle edging off the shelf.

And now it was angry.

Now, when I open the freezer door and touch anything on that upper shelf, never mind attempt to remove it, the orange juice can LAUNCHES itself at me, filled with thoughts of orangey murder and aiming for my throat. Perhaps the sister who studies physics can explain it to me, but something about my distance from the freezer and the can’s distance from the floor renders me unable to catch it, ever. It tumbles, catching a wrist or elbow on the way, to thump on the floor. It’s a strange sort of slow-motion inevitability: I know what’s happening, and yet I can change nothing this time either. I’m only fortunate that while the glacier orange can drip given sufficient time, it stays inside the can and does not splat on the floor. Though if it would splat, then the my orange juice nemesis would finally be wiped up, dead and buried.

Why don’t you throw it out? you might ask. I’ll tell you why: my mother’s upbringing. That is PERFECTLY GOOD orange juice, ladies and gentleman. One does not WASTE FOOD. My mother would never know, but what she instilled is too strong to allow me to dispose of orange juice nemesis that way.

And if you doubt me, I’ll leave you with this absolutely true fact: I told my mother about the orangey murder I regularly escaped by inches…and she offered to have me bring it home and put it in her freezer for her to use up. PERFECTLY GOOD!