I don’t know how many of you may have seen the Mythbusters episode about exploding beans, but it brought back memories for me.

Not memories of an epic asswhipping- sure, there was an asswhipping involved, but it wasn’t a world class asswhipping, it was sort of a lackadaisical thing. Ho, hum, i can’t sit down, yay, what’s for supper, I’ll just eat standing here in a corner.

I had arrived at an age where I helped cook the evening meal fairly often, and I was no stranger to using the stove. We had a big stainless Hardwicke cooktop, gas, with those grates that looked like giant ninja stars. (if mom only knew how many times those things had been off the stove, and embedded in rotten logs in the backyard!!)

Anyway, I knew Mom had ordered some ribs from the little restaurant that was on her way home, and I though, shit, what goes better with ribs than baked beans? I knew there was a can in the pantry, so i went down and got them.

I was about to crank them open when I thought to myself, damn, the can is metal, right? And when Mom cooks stuff i the pressure cooker it gets done faster, right? heat + pressure = great tasting food!!

Good Lord, I am a friggin’ GENIUS!!!

I’m gonna put the can RIGHT on the stove, it’ll cook up great, and we won’t dirty a pot, and it’ll be WONDERFUL! Whyinhell hasn’t anyone else ever thought of this? hell, I already had a set of Dad’s welding gloves ready to hold the can and open it.

So I set it on the stove, and put it on “high” There was an anxious moment as the paper label burned off the can, but it was soon gone.

I heard Mom pulling into the garage and realized I was still wearing my PJ’s. This was a capitol offense; we were not allowed to ‘Lounge around” all day, we had to get dressed- even though we werent’ allowed to go outdoors. So I ran into my roomto change before she got up the stairs.

Thenkfully, something else happened before she got up the stairs. She was on the landing, in fact, when the can went “BOOM!”

Sure, an asswhipping ensued. But the cleaning was the worst bit, I spent most of that evening cleaning and it was a mess. Years afterward, each time there was a remodeling project, we’d find a couple beans we’d missed, like stuck to the wallpaper in a place where the pattern hid it, or on the top of one of the blades of the ceiling fan, or behind the cabinets. The asswhipping wasn’t half as memorable as the lesson learned, nor the cleaning of the baked beans.