Mr Fancy Pants

It all started when I received a coffee press as a Secret Santa gift. One puts in fresh coffee grounds and hot water, then moves the plunger sieve thing and voila - fresh coffee. Actually, it sucks as a coffee-producing unit because there are always grounds in the coffee. But hey, it looks cool sitting there all glass and metal and mysterious. It's a good piece for the arty part of my table or counter. A real conversation starter. Well not yet, but someday. Anyhoo...my arty kitchen crap collection is started.



I'm a sucker for Ikea displays and cooking shows. I like how everything is neatly laid out in proper containers and dishes and stuff. Some of them are see-through cupboards or jars or what-have-you. Look carefully next time - all their pastas are there in glass containers like austentatious displays of cooking talent.

So anyways, I bought a tall glass container to keep up with the fancy pasta-displaying crowd. I also bought a giant box of spaghetti because I'd remembered that I was running low and needed a bunch to fill this huge glass thing. It turned out that I'd also remembered that I was running low on spaghetti on my last trip - but didn't remember that part until I got home. After today I now have a fancy glass container of spaghetti, a 2/3's used big box of spaghetti, and an unopened bigger one. But no matter.




Problem: The box of spaghetti is rectangular and big, and the jar needing the spaghetti is round and less big.


Background: This is an incredibly easy problem for someone with a physics, math, and engineering background - so no calculations are needed. I'll just attack it in a logical order, stepping through the potential solutions until one works:


Theories:

1) Tilt the box, grab handfuls of spaghetti, transfer to jar.

Result: Didn't work - too much spaghetti was coming out, and it was hard to get handfuls, but none was lost. In retrospect, I should've tried harder at this stage.


2) The quantity of spaghetti will easily fit into the round container, providing I kind of hold back the upper layer and rotate the box along its longitudinal axis to make a 'V' with a corner, then simply let the spaghetti slip in.

Result: It didn't work because it was coming out in the wrong shape and the...uhh...variable frictional coefficients were producing an...um...erratic effect - but I lost only a couple of spag's.


3) This is a 'square peg in a round hole' problem; I just have to equalize the shapes and the transfer is trivial. Squishing the box until its end is round turns it into a 'round peg in a round hole' problem. Fantastic idea.

Result: It didn't work because the round carboard peg was bigger than the round glass hole - but a fair quantity of spag's got partially into the container.



4) Assess the situation and check the inventory.

• Standing sheepishly with spaghetti all over the freaking place
• Blindingly obvious realization that it's not close to fitting in
• Messed-up box with spaghetti hanging out
• Breakable container jam-packed with spaghetti hanging out
• Spag's on counter, floor, microwave, and between hip and counter
• Feeling like a Three Stooges fire drill met an I Love Lucy skit

Result: Panic - though I was finally able to pull the two containers apart, shake them until the spaghetti was back in, and put them aside.

This made the rest of the kitchen look like a giant version of a Pickup Sticks game. Or a mammoth explosion at a pipe yard. Or the Whitemud Freeway at rush hour when it's snowing. Or...well, you get the picture. And the bonus was that I got to see it happen in slow motion right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I'm going to be finding pieces for years.





Mitigating Factor: Spaghetti is springy when just the tip is being held.


Analysis: The money saved by buying the big box instead of the convenient packages that probably fit right into the container - shot to hell. Oh, but I'm sure the ginormous box that I haven't opened yet will work just peachy. Nooooo problems at all. You know, I may just give it to a food bank to save my ego from getting another boot to the twig and berries.


Conclusion: Stupid spaghetti.