Nobody took me up on the offer to view a photo of Marty’s kombucha, which he never could get to taste quite right, and now it is gone, pfffbbbt, over and done with and not a single photo to memorialize it.
All week long going on about how he thought this would be THE batch where he finally gets it right, Marty hands me a small taste test of his kombucha yesterday, saying that this is it, after months of trial and experimentation the kombucha is, for the first time, good. I don’t drink the stuff but I took a taste and agreed that yes, this was really good, very light, rather like a cider, not too sour, nicely sweet but not too sweet.
The kombucha jug, this massive glass thing, was set on the top of the refrigerator. I later went in and opened the freezer door, the freezer door being a horizontal door at the refrigerator’s top. As I opened it I realized something had begun coming down and without glancing up I knew immediately it was the kombucha jug. Marty had apparently left it sitting on the very edge of the refrigerator so it was resting on the freezer door, and when I opened the freezer door down it came.
It occurred to me only briefly that I might try to catch it. This occurred to me as I was, in our small kitchen, reflexively leaping into the corner by the sink, just a couple feet away, trying to steer clear of it.
The kombucha jug hit the ground and exploded. Kombucha tea and glass spread out for yards into the next room and leaped 4 feet high up the walls and onto the surrounding shelves. I was soaked in kombucha and surrounded by broad panes and minuscule splinters of glass.
Marty came in yelling at me not to move, he didn’t want me to get cut. I told him to get my flip flops. For some reason he kept yelling at me not to move. By now I’m yelling at him to get me my flip flops so I can put those on and get out of the kitchen and he is still yelling at me no, no, don’t move, don’t move. He had been woken up from a nap, was woozy with sleep and didn’t comprehend the why of the flip flops.
It took us an hour to clean up the mess.
I felt so bad about it, Marty having just produced, that day, after many long months, his first good tasting batch of kombucha.
“Why do you feel bad about it?” Marty said. “You didn’t leave the jug on the edge of the refrigerator.”
“But I do feel bad about it. This was your first good tasting batch.”
“Never mind,” he said. “I don’t like the stuff and I’m sick of working with it.”
I sometimes wonder how many times we pursue a thing just because, having invested time and perhaps a little money, we are reluctant to drop it.
I had sometimes wondered if this was the case with the kombucha. But also felt Marty enjoyed it as a hobby.
I wondered if Marty was making excuses so I wouldn’t feel bad about what had happened.
Today Marty was talking kombucha again, what he might do differently this time.
“But I thought you didn’t like it,” I said.
He made a noncommittal, maybe-maybe-not, shrug of his shoulders.
There is a Worldwide Kombucha Exchange. The majority of people who post there don’t charge for sharing their cultures, that is how passionate they are about kombucha, they will give you their cultures for free just because they enjoy sharing the wonders of kombucha.
They call their cultures “babies”.
If I tell Marty this, he may very well give the project up.
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