We have too many frozen berries in the freezer, a bunch left from when we picked about 19 bajillion gallons last summer at my grandfather-in-law's house and some store-bought ones as well. This morning seemed like a good day to make smoothies. I had yogurt. I had berries. Mmmm...smoothies.

Everything was going perfectly well until I decided to throw in a few more strawberries. I have a very strong Waring blender, but a berry decided to gum things up. I turned off the motor, stuck an extra long chopstick down and started poking around to loosen things up. It got to blending again, but was still not chopping the berries as much as I wanted them to be chopped -- despite having plenty of liquid.

I took off the top and was stirring the surface with the chopstick. The kids were talking, the Toddler was demanding more cheerios, Justin was telling me something interesting. Absentmindedly I stuck the chopstick down just a bit further. Kablooie!

Purple (blackberry and strawberry) smoothie all over me, the counter, the floor, the shelves. It's a good thing we have 10 foot ceilings of it would have been up there too.

So just a reminder folks. Don't stick things in the blender when the motor is running and blend with the lid on.