phosfate

I'm still not quite sure how we went from a nice wholesome family movie to plotting anarchy - I seem to remember something about Sharon Is Bored - but somehow, a few hours later, Susan, Sharon, and I were prowling the aisles at Meijers, and we were up to no good.

It was Gretchen's fault, really. She'd sent us the link to the Quicktime movie of the experiment a few months earlier, and we had (jokingly I'm sure) discussed attempting to replicate it. In the words of bomb-makers everywhere, "I saw it on the Internet."

Oh, who am I kidding, we knew exactly what we were going to do.

Someone got the roll of Mentos from a check-out lane candy rack. We spent several minutes in the soda aisle pondering which to use. Diet Dr Pepper had been the choice in the original - but would any soda work? Did it have to be diet - was the Aspertame the key? Was there something particular about Dr Pepper? In the end, we decided to go with the known ingredients our first time out, and got a two-litre bottle of Diet Dr Pepper. Susan snagged a disposa-cam (free die-cast Volkeswagon Beetle attached!) in order to document the event.

We checked out, trying not to look guilty, and I'm sure failing spectacularly.

Where to do the deed? Sharon was all for Meijers parking lot, until we reminded her of their multiple high-quality security cameras and our complete lack of bail money. The Holiday Inn parking lot, with its utter lack of security, seemed a better choice - but we didn't want to risk accidentally eating the finish off anybody's car. So we chose the brand-new vacant lot behind the HI, where we were least likely to be noticed or to leave damning trace evidence (yes, we watch way too much CSI), or to disturb the peaceful inhabitants of Lansing at 2:00 a.m.

We parked the car, and moved our operation to the borderline between tarmac and filthy wet mud. Susan held the plastic bag with our stuff. I put my glasses over my head in order to work the disposa-cam ("Wait, the flash doesn't wor-oh, there's a button. We're fine."), and Sharon, clutching the roll of Mentos, did the deed.

The lid of the soda was unscrewed. Flash.

Sharon held a Mento over the lip of the bottle. Flash.

Sharon dropped the Mento into the Diet Dr Pepper and backed away very very quickly. Fla--"Holy shit!"

FWOOOOOSSHH!!!

Diet Dr Pepper geysered everywhere.

It was magnificent.

We gathered up the detritus, tossed it into the garbage, and skulked back into the hotel before the owner of the very upset barking dog called the cops.

Science is fun.