Sunday, July 27, 2008

Glass with a temper

Ever wonder what the story is on that "tempered glass" in your refrigerator?

I always did, until this weekend. On Thursday, we moved into the house we're renting here in California, and instead of starting to put things away, I have spent most of my time trying to clean the kitchen. The filthy kitchen is a whole other story, and one I've decided not to bore you with, but here is one small section of the counter top:


The fridge was disgusting, and I decided I'd better tackle that first. After I took out all the shelves and various components and promptly forgot where they all went (aren't refrigerators a bit complicated these days?) I was washing a piece of tempered glass in the sink. Mind you, I did not drop the glass, there was no extreme temperature change, no trauma of any kind to the piece of glass. I just was holding it, then I ever so gently placed it in the sink, and CRASH! It exploded into a million tiny pieces. There were shards of glass on the floor, on the counter top, in the sink, and of course several went down the garbage disposal.

It seems to me that I spend a disproportional amount of time picking tiny things out of the garbage disposal.

As I later learned from my trusty Internet, tempered glass is much stronger than ordinary glass, but it is in fact specially designed to shatter into a million tiny pieces if there is any breakage at all. The idea is that there won't be any large chunks to slice your jugular. However, it does not mean you will leave the encounter unscathed. After cleaning up the mess I did have a couple of cuts on my fingers.

So now I've added "get new refrigerator shelf" to my ever expanding to-do list, but at least the fridge is finally clean.

Tomorrow, if I have the energy, I'll move on to the freezer.

2 comments:

Dawn said...

I feel your pain! I had this happen to me, and it made a mess everywhere. I was thankful that I didn't get cut, but who knew those tiny pieces could fly so far?

Unknown said...

awwwwwwwwwwwwwww shucks!....i'm so sorry!