We lead wild and exciting lives over here, folks. Living on the edge. That's what we do.
If you doubt me, read on.
It all began a few months ago. A dark day it was. Very dark. You see. We had this blender. A lovely blender it was. Now, by the untrained eye it was simply an out-of-date, beige, plastic blender of yesteryear with a cracked circle thingy at the top of the beige vinyl lid. But, Ahh. What a blender. Margaritas were silky smooth concoctions with the perfect ice puree. Smoothies with tons of frozen fruit chunks became creamy delights. And when the food processor impacted the kitchen tile at an unfortunate velocity and angle and became, for a time, unable to produce the addictive garlic-cilantro-lime salsa that sustains life itself, the beige wonder blender came to the rescue and provided until appropriate repairs could be made.
Our trusty blender. Happy thoughts.
And then.
In the midst of smoothie making....Ahhhhhh! Smoke! More smoke. Terrible sounds. "wrrrrr wrrrrr wuuhhhrr wu r r r" And then nothing. Just a kitchen full of stinky smoke, a half blended smoothie and unbelieving eyes begging it not to be true. It was gone. It was toast. Unblended toast. Bummer.
We began the unwelcome job of blender hunting and bought a basic model of a good brand. Skeptically we tried it. It was as expected. Fine. But nothing like the old, beige, cracked Oster wonder blender. (our name, not Oster's)
We settled in with our new kitchen friend. But it seemed too new and cold and not-our-old-blender. (I told you this would be exciting folks.)
This past Saturday night we were scrapping about, looking for something to eat for dinner that required little or no effort. We came up with popcorn and smoothies. I was on popcorn duty and accomplished my task, ceremoniously dumping the large pot of fluffy corn into a big bowl as David concocted the smoothie.
We noticed that the blender jumped around a bit and we saw large, dark fruit chunks that the blender was having trouble pureeing. It started leaking a little. We looked at each other and sighed. "It's not the old blender is it? We will never have another one like it."
David poured out the smoothies and we took our dinner to the couch to watch something with the kids. I cannot remember what it was. Hmmmm.
Caroline took a small dark chunk from her smoothie and asked us what it was. We assured her it was just a blackberry or raspberry seed and it was fine. She popped it into her mouth and settled back into the couch.
The smoothies were yummy as was the popcorn and we happily munched away oblivious to...
Suddenly David sprang up and said firmly "Everybody stop drinking the smoothies now. Do not take another drink. Put them down." He is staring into his cup and repeats "Do not drink any more. Does everyone hear me?" And looks at the kids. Their eyes open widely at his stern and unexpected orders and they too stare down into their cups. I turn questioningly to him and he simply tilts his almost empty cup towards me.
Ahhh! Shards of black rubber litter the bottom of his cup. I look at mine. Same thing. And Caroline's. And Parker's. I want to throw up. Where did it come from?
We walk slowly to the kitchen, suspiciously eyeing the sub-par blender.
After disassembling the blender, we realize that somehow the rubber o-ring left its snuggly home UNDER the glass blender jar and violently thrust itself into our smoothie. The lurching and leaking was the chopping and dicing of the rubber o-ring that was to become our dinner. The dark chunks that we worked so hard to puree were RUBBER O-RING. The small specks that we told our daughter were fine to eat were RUBBER O-RING. I really want to throw up. Rubber o-ring is a non-food item.
We stared at each other, the nausea mounting and thought "Oh no. We just fed the whole family most of a rubber o-ring. What do we do now?"
We settled on poison control. They assured us that we should be fine but "If the children start vomiting, take them to the ER immediately." Great.
We went back into the kitchen and said bad things about the blender and gave it scathing looks. It just sat there. Taunting us with its very existence.
Defeated and queasy, it was back to the couch. We tried to ignore the nausea and snuggled the kids, watching whatever show it was that we started.
Score
Blender – 1, Humans – 0
Don't leave me hanging. Did you toss the new blender? Or are you giving it another chance?
Posted by: Rita at November 14, 2007 01:59 PMI like the foreshadowing that the blender was leaking a bit. Concerning certainly, but not anything to make you think you'd be munching rubber...
Posted by: John at November 19, 2007 12:09 PMThe blender lives, but I am scared of it. We have a new o-ring. I can just imagine the customer service rep's face as I gave her my story. She kept saying "Oh my!" "Wow!" "I've never heard anything like that before!" great.
Posted by: Blender Mama at November 27, 2007 05:36 AM