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Back around 250 BC when Archimedes invented the screw pump, he likely never envisioned the modern marvel it would become - the chocolate fountain.

I own a ½ interest in a chocolate fountain.  I did not know this until recently when my lovely wife co-hosted a wedding shower for a neighbor.  When the fountain returned home after the party, I was quick to move in for a chocolate covered snack.  When it was time for clean up, my lovely wife began to disassemble the fountain’s various tiers exposing the simple machine that enables the whole show.  An Archimedes’ screw lifts the molten chocolate from the basin up through a hollow tube where it then flows down over the shaped tiers.  When the fountain is taken apart all that is left is a bowl of liquid chocolate and a vertical screw.

I’m not sure how to explain why I did what I did next.  In my Polish mind I decided to further investigate the still chocolate covered device.  I pressed the on switch.  Okay, I’m not nearly as smart as Archimedes because obviously the whole screw pump mechanics don’t work without the surrounding hollow pipe.  I also failed to fully appreciate the speed at which this machine operates.  What happened next was like turning on a chocolate sprinkler system in the middle of the kitchen.  In about two seconds I splatter painted a very large area = r² • Π of our kitchen.

I don’t know if I’ll ever outgrow my dumb childlike curiosity for how things work.  This lesson only cost my about 30 minutes of wiping up the kitchen.  Delicious.

– steve