Sunday, April 17, 2005

A Mystery

Ok, so I have a mystery for somebody to solve. The way I see it, there are two possibilities, and I'm hoping you can help me determine which one is the more logical.

I'm on the couch last night, watching a movie on my new laptop. I suddenly hear a crash. Not a soft tinkling crash like a cat pushing over a tin of tuna, but a crash that sounded like a brick had just been thrown through our kitchen window.

I race out to investigate (sporting my Winston Churchill sleeper pajamas), and see nothing.

Eventually I notice that our 'money jar' (a fairly good sized ceramic container) has burst. Sitting next to the broken money jar is a broken coconut. Now the coconut in question was purchased by me just a few hours before, but here is the mystery, and the two possibilities.

Possibility one - Coconuts explode. My hypothesis is that the coconut burst, and was sitting next to the jar, thus breaking the jar (which again, sounded like somebody hurled the jar against the wall or something). However, I have looked on the internet, but can find nothing about coconuts exploding, thus raising serious questions. The other problem with this hypothesis is that as far as my wife and I recall, the coconut was 10 FEET AWAY FROM THE MONEY JAR! There is no way the coconut exploded, traveled across the room (both sides, and the milk), hit the money jar, without spilling any milk between point A and point B. Which leads me to the only other logical possibility.

Possibility Two - Our house is haunted. I can only surmise that some specter, in a fit of rage (maybe it didn't like our decor), threw the coconut across the room, it struck the jar, and burst both the jar, and the coconut. This would account for the very large crashing sound.

Taking into acount the use of the coconut, one can only conclude that the specter must have been Graham Chapman.

Now that I think of it, there could be a third possibility involving an African swallow, but I haven't seen any flying around the house at night.

18 comments:

Maria said...

Go with the haunted house theory. It's much more exciting than randomly exploding coconuts. You can organize your own Scooby gang and solve the mystery!

shelleylyn said...

What about ants? Maybe it was ants.

Marion Jensen said...

To the Mystery Van!

Kami said...

Perhaps your money was growing. If so, I want a magic pot like yours. Was there a bean stalk growing out of the mess, any goose feathers?

Anonymous said...

I also cannot find any mention on The Internet of coconuts exploding, except for this very post. That is why I am here. A coconut exploded in my kitchen last night, and I was lucky enough not to be there when it happened, for that must be very traumatic. So, please let me be the second person to state with empirical evidence, that coconuts do indeed explode.

Anonymous said...

I am searching on-line for info about exploding coconuts, having just been awakened by one an hour ago. At the moment I live in fear of the other coconut in my kitchen, as if it is a ticking coconut bomb from Gilligan's Island. I don't know wether to put it in the fridge or bury it in the backyard :-P

Anonymous said...

So, my mother is a preschool teacher and she was doing a lesson with her kids about different kinds of fruit from the amazon. Well, she brought in a coconut for the kids to shake and hear the juice inside. This was in the morning. At the end of the day the kids were leaving and as the last student walked out of the room, the coconut EXPLODED. She said that it almost hit her in head and the the juice from the coconut was everywhere. We have not been able to find any info on this strage occurance.

Anonymous said...

I think I solved the mystery... I believe that intact coconuts explode if they get too hot. You can test it by putting a whole one in your oven at about 200 degrees and wait a few minutes.(at a safe distance) Make sure it doesn't have a crack or hole in it, otherwise nothing will happen, and don't complain if you have to buy a new oven.

Anonymous said...

I was sitting at my computer, when I heard what sounded like a champagne cork popping. I looked around my kitchen and heard a fizzing sound. I saw a coconut I bought a few days earlier in two pieces, with juice everywhere. It blew up! So I googled "coconuts explode", and this page was the first result.

Coconuts really do explode. That is seriously cool, I wish I had seen it happen.

I'd just like to add that the coconut wasn't anywhere warm, it was sitting undisturned at about 72 degrees F.

Anonymous said...

Yes, coconuts do explode. It happened in our house today. My husband said it was very loud, but he didn't know what it was until I came home and found the coconut in two pieces, milk in the basket it was in. It's been really hot where I am, in the 90's for a few days, don't know if that's the reason.

Anonymous said...

I coconut exploding in my kitchen just this morning as I was making my coffee. It scared me to death! What a mess, coconut milk every where. I seemed to smell an oder like fermintation. I wonder if some how the coconut was able to fermint and that caused it to explode.

Anonymous said...

I arrived at this site in a similar fashion for the same reason. Neighber came in asking about why her coconut was opened and water all over the table? Best we can tell it exploded all on its own and it does have a faint fermented smell. So I guess a better question may be "Do Good Coconuts Go Bad and Why?" ttfn

Anonymous said...

I just came home to an exploded coconut on my floor. This was the very first search result for me on Google.

It sat in my kitchen peacefully for about a month. It seems to be throughly dry and rancid inside. I'm guessing that gasses formed due to internal fermentation, coupled with contraction-expansion from the heating and cooling of the room (an oversensitive furnace in the Canadian winter), eventually caused it to pop.

I wish I could have been home to see it!

Anonymous said...

I'm going to ask the produce department about this one. I bought a coconut three days ago, and while working in the garage I heard a loud noise. 50 ft away in the house in the kitchen my wife discovered our new coconut split down the middle and coco milk everywhere. This is the only site I could find that had any info. Oh, the milk that I tasted was terrible. I didn't try the fruit.

Anonymous said...

Found this site like everyone else here.. were watching scary movie when we heard what sounded like a gun shot in the kitchen with dishes flying across room. While I was trying to dial 911 my wife noticed two halves of a coconut with liquid everywhere.

Anonymous said...

i just had a coconut explode in our room last night! i was surfing the net a few feet away from the coconut when it happened. I heard a loud boom and saw the coconut flying in the air. It split in half and the juices splattered everywhere. I initially thought our place had been broken into or that something crashed through our roof! but after clearing the scene, it turned out the coconut just exploded. my problem now is how to get the smell of fermenting coconut out of the room!

Chris Todd Miller said...

Sure enough, top of the search results. And although I can't account for the exploding coconut, I do give you kudos for the Holy Grail reference.

Scott Sexton said...

I had this happen a few years back...I actually think it's from the coconut going bad or fermenting cause I opened one earlier that week and it tasted awful. I was sitting in my chair about 2 or 3 feet away and BLAM-O! Imagine a dry ice bomb going off next to your head...thats what I would compare it to. There was also a large glass next to it which made it shatter...I thought someone shot a gun through the window and hit the glass...scared the ever loving out of me and my sister...have not bought one since then, and don't plan on it either lol