The Mother in the Jar

I take it back. I was right the first time. It's Johnny that has the pack-rat problem.

He not merely orders everything they sell on late-night informercials. He not only hangs on to every working toaster. He not just takes everything off everybody's hands that they're looking to get rid of.

Oh, no.

He also spends a lot of money, and a lot of time and effort, starting things he never finishes and yet refuses to throw away.

Exhibits 1 through however-many:

These are in the guest bedroom. I don't even know what's in them anymore. I'm sure Johnny does. I think one is maybe Green Tomato wine and the other is peach port or something. He insists that it's still good. He swears that wine is not like beer. He says that wine can sit in the carboy (glass bottle) or plastic bucket until the endtimes come. That the smaller, glass bottles we're used to using (or, lately, for some of us, the cardboard boxes) are only for convenience's sake.

Whatever. When he opens it, I'll smell it. If I don't gag, then I'll take one tiny sip. If that doesn't make me throw up I might drink up the whole glass. Slowly. But experience has taught me that tomorrow-me will loathe today-me if I let her get schnockered on my husband's homemade wine.

Headache... I thought I'd die!

This is what I learned that lesson on:

Tea wine. How we invented this was, Johnny put a gallon jug on the fire escape of our old apartment, with a couple Irish tea bags in it and some lemon slices stuffed with cloves. It was July. He thought he was making sun tea.

In August, when I remembered about the sun tea on the fire escape, I pulled it in to dump it down the drain -- but, of course, Johnny (say it with me) wouldn't let me do it. He threw in a little yeast, makeshifted a gallon-carboy, and he let it brew. That time, we did actually bottle it. It tastes like whisky for non-whisky drinkers, if you see what I mean. Same sort of flavor, but we non-whisky-drinking lightweights can still get it down. We've made a batch or two of Johnny's Sun Tea Homebrew every summer since. I recommend it. But I have to warn you: this shit will knock you on your ass.

Okay, what's next? Oh...

That doesn't count. Somebody handed that down to us before we moved here, because they'd fouled up their own homebrew adventure. Johnny was supposed to dump out the vinegary contents and just score the carboy for his own use, but he figured five gallons of vinegar was still five gallons of possibly-useful vinegar. Five years down the line, he hasn't tapped it. And I love him and I try to be adventurous enough, but even I don't know about the looks of that. I don't think the hole in the stopper is plugged up anymore. And I really don't like the look of that ring around the surface.

So but this one?

Eh, this one's just dirty. I'd drink what's in there. If I knew what it was.

This picture I took before I checked the bucket:

Turns out the bucket is just full of empty bottles. So why is it not in the basement, then? I don't know.

And this seems to be the only one of these that I can find:

One-gallon jugs full of random experiments. There are usually five or seven of them wandering around. A canteloupe goes bad and he throws it in a jar. Somebody hands us down hot peppers. Water, yeast, and anything vegetative means to Johnny the potential for alcoholic drink. But they're all gone now.

Maybe he dumped them all when we tore out the kitchen? Nah. They're in a cupboard or something somewhere.

Okay, so here we are, back where we began, at the Mother in the Jar. Three people this week have slept in my guest bedroom, and all three have commented on this ... thing. Now, out of pure coincidence, I've posted a picture of it, and now Tara's asking, too.

I called it a Mother, but it isn't really. It just looks like one. So what the disgusto is that Moreau-Island-looking thing?

It's this:

Some big fat stupid mushroom that some "eat according to your blood type" friend of Johnny's recommended that he buy and brew. It's supposed to, I don't know, make you grow wings and crystals or some such shit like that. Johnny brewed it up, he tried it once, it tasted foul and did nothing, and yet still he just can't seem to throw the nasty thing away. And so it sits. On the dresser in the guest bedroom, begging all our guests to ask us what it is.

Actually, no. It's there because I was getting it out of the kitchen when we re-began the Kitchen Project. But now that it is there, and they're inquiring as to what it is, I ask them all if they want to try a sip. I figure that we got Jean to eat a year-old Christmas pudding, and we got LadyCiani to eat a year-old New Year's pig-rat, so I've got to at least try to get somebody to drink this shroomy brew.

Oddly enough, we've had no takers so far.



It would be really funny right now if I offered to send a sip to somebody, but I don't think I can have that on my conscience.

In the meantime, let's all be glad that this is not a part of any intended-to-be-potable project.

Yeah. I'll tell you about those buckets some other time.