"Pear Butter '04"

What does a glass jar of "Pear Butter '04" do when it falls 5 feet from its pantry shelf and hits the carpet? The plush, shaggy, relatively new carpet?

It breaks with a low thud and splashes its Pear Buttery goodness everywhere. Even at 12:30 in the morning.

The first thing I did when I saw the fallen jar was wonder to myself if we had any bread in the house. It seemed like a waste to just clean up the spill and throw away the Pear Butter remains. Unfortunately, we did not have any bread.

Next, I broke for the paper towel roll, knowing that I had very little time before gravity pulled the spill into the dark reaches of the carpet backing. Anything reaching that deep would be smelled (if not seen) for generations to come. I was trying to work fast to get the big piles up when I sliced my finger on a shard of what remained of the glass jar.

As I started to bleed, I realized that if I was not careful I would soon be cleaning up two types of liquid from my carpet. I wasn't sure if the Pear Butter was going to stain my rug, but I was pretty sure about the blood. I've watched CSI.

I proceeded more carefully, finishing the chunk removal phase and moving on to the chemical spray phase (aka the dabbing phase). Using up three-quarters of a roll of paper towels, two-hundred fifty thousand dabs, a band-aid, and about an hour, everything was back to how it was before. You can't even tell where the "Pear Butter '04" had come to rest on my carpet.

Go ahead and look next time you visit. Just don't ask for any Pear Butter. There isn't any left. And we don't have any bread anyway.