Coke and Mentos
Last weekend Mom was out of town at a Women’s Retreat. That left three boys at home alone with nothing to do.
Now it would have been a relatively benign weekend of movies and popcorn. That is, until Todd Wilson from Family Man sent out his weekly email newsletter. In it he wrote about being the dad that goes the extra mile:
…THE EXTRA MILE.
That’s the kind of dad I want to be. I want to celebrate birthday’s in a big way, drive miles out of the way to experience America, stop the ice cream truck on a busy summer night, take a bike ride TWO nights in a row, and take the time to dump some Mentos in a 2-liter of Diet Coke.
I want to be an EXTRA MILE kind of dad.
And I want to encourage you to be that kind of dad, too.
It was the Mentos and Coke that caught my attention.
I had seen the videos online of the Coke and Mentos experiment, but hadn’t really put much thought into actually doing it myself. However, after Dad Wilson’s encouragement I couldn’t avoid having some fun with the boys.
Our first stop was to the grocery store to pick up the Coke and Mentos. I sent the boys on a trek across the store to get the 2-liters of Coca-Cola while I loaded us up on other bachelor supplies. When I arrived in the soda aisle, my eldest was lifting my youngest as far overhead as he could to reach the bottles. A concerned grocery store worker had arrived on the scene and was helping them get the 2-liter down. I helped them with the other two bottles before we headed for the checkout. I had to make a separate stop at the gas station to find the Mentos. So far, I kept our mad experiment a surprise.
We met my friend Chris at home and set out to explode some Coke.
Some tips for the aspiring Coke detonator:
- Use new soda. Expired soda will not give the same effect; I think it loses some of its zest.
- For a 2-liter use between 10-12 Mentos for the proper effect. Our last experiment failed to produce a violent reaction because we only had 3 Mentos left
- Choose diet soda over regular. Diet isn’t sticky.
At this point, I was still keeping the kids a bit in the dark about what would happen. Using a piece of PVC pipe I had lying around, I dropped the candies into the soda. We were not disappointed by the frothing cola. The soda foamed to a fountain six feet high accompanied by the squeals of delight.
We repeated the experiment another time and decided to save the third bottle to show Mom and the neighbor kids. The boys raved all weekend and told everyone they saw about how cool this was.
Chris and I tried to figure out other ways to get a bigger blast. We thought the best approach was to have a drop tube that screwed on the top of the bottle that had a small opening that would force the soda out under higher pressure. I’ll have to experiment with that one. I just hope that no one starts talking about “John’s Coke problem” at social events.
It was worth it to be an extra mile kind of dad.
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