Christmas on the Counter

A sweet smell, familiar but unusual, it smacked me in the face as soon as I opened the door.  “What is that scent?” I wondered to myself as I stepped into the living room.  “Ah! It’s cinnamon!”  “Wait a minute, why does my apartment smell like cinnamon?”

And then it all came flooding back.  I had gone into the kitchen to check on the amount of defrosted bacon and instead found a counter covered in sticky red goo.  The Aftershock!

The bottle was still inside the previously-white reusable shopping bag.  The salt and pepper shaker sat like little islands in a red lake.  The sugar bowl was nearby waiting to drop anchor at Shaker Bay.  If it weren’t for the cloth of the shopping bag and the now-soggy hot pad that had been left on the counter, the floor might have shared in the counter’s unseasonal holiday celebration.

I had brought the bottle home the night before from Short Artichoke’s birthday celebration.  Someone had put it in her freezer at some other party she had and she figured she was never going to drink it.  It had never been opened.

I didn’t expect to drink it myself but figured it’d be good for when my sisters’ come to visit me.  Munchkinhead loves that stuff, calls it “Christmas in a glass.”  Luckily, I was able to salvage a bit for when one of them visits.

The bottle cracked on the bottom near the giant crystal that’s inside.  This prevented the liquid from leaking out as quickly or as fully as it otherwise might have.  From the looks of the bottle, the temperature change from being frozen to room temperature caused the bottle to crack and break open.    Lesson learned: folks, don’t put Aftershock in the freezer.

Actually, I don’t mind that the bottle broke and the liquor leaked all over.  I’d much rather smell spilt cinnamon in the kitchen than the trash!