In Case You Were Wondering...

Just in case you need to know what the absolute worst thing is to have spilled all over your pantry floor, I know the answer: a Costco-sized bottle of good balsamic vinegar.

Let me say, I am a connoisseur of pantry spillage. Once Kendra dumped a five-pound bag of flour on her head. It made for funny photos and super-easy clean up with a Hepa-filtered vacuum. A couple years ago, I accidentally broke (of course; who would do this on purpose?) a pint-sized bottle of olive oil on the pantry floor. Messy, for sure, but fairly easily contained with loads of paper towels and a bucket of soapy water.

Today's episode, however, came on the heels of my Mover of Stuff diatribe below. I was trying to move the waffle iron from the appliance cabinet to the a spot in the pantry next to the waffle mix. I was sliding the bottles of condiments over a little when, in super slow-mo, I saw the liter of balsamic vinegar fall off the shelf and crash onto the already-chipped tile below. The almost-black liquid started oozing faster than the Exxon-Valdez oil spill. Within 20 seconds, the entire 3-by-6 foot pantry floor was covered in a pool of acrid-smelling viscosity. I had dozens of boxes, bins, and food-stuffs on the floor, all of which were now soaked with vinegar. To my credit, all I said was, "Oh, no." I am particularly proud of my verbal restraint.

The vinegar had splattered onto my feet, flip-flops (which were thankfully a dark-brown color already), and lower legs. As I walked across the kitchen to get the paper towels, I left brown footprints all over the floor. The scenario kept getting worse as I starting mopping up the sticky goo and cut my fingers on the shards of glass. Now we've got vinegar and blood forever staining the grout.

(Now that I think of it, there was already some residual olive oil in the grout from before. Now the grout houses a little oil-and-vinegar salad dressing.)

I spent the next two hours mopping, Floor-Mating, sponging, rinsing, and wiping down everything in a 10-foot radius from the initial impact. The grout is indeed a much darker color, but we're in the process of picking out new tile for the kitchen anyway. God's timing was good here. Also, the balsamic-stained grout nicely offsets the crayon-stained grout on the other side of the kitchen. When Kendra was 2, she took a red crayon and a blue crayon and literally scrubbed them into the kitchen grout. I can say with authority that it is impossible to remove crayon from grout, even if it has been sealed. We have a rather patriotic looking section of grout.

On a disgusting side note, I once came down with the flu an hour or so after eating spinach salad with balsamic dressing. As I was getting sick, that distinctive taste and smell of balsamic made that particular bout of flu so much worse. It was years before I could handle the smell of balsamic vinegar. After tonight's episode, I'm thinking I may never buy another bottle of the stuff again.