Nov 23 2008
Newly Added to My List of “Things I Have Done That You Probably Haven’t”
Here it is:
“Cut myself on yogurt.”
Yes, yogurt. Not the container, the actual yogurt.
And not just cut myself. Made myself bleed.
It takes a special kind of person to cut themselves on a thixotropic food product; apparently, I am that kind of person. I don’t know how I feel about that. It’s not exactly the most manly thing I’ve ever done. On the other hand, how many others can claim such a distinction? I’m thinking not very many. Ever. So I have that going for me.
I'm the Creative Consultant for this television show, appearing Fridays on Syfy. Miss a week? For US residents, 
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Actually, I think I’d like to see the speculation on how I might have done this. It’s probably more interesting than how I actually did it.
The only scenario I can even imagine involves the yogurt being in a solid aggregate stage. Did you try to make freezer pops out of the stuff, perhaps?
Nope.
Hmm…either hardened on the side, or one of those _razor blades_ at the bottom types of yogurt.
Theory: “Live” yoghurt develops faint sentience, and having decoded the oscillations of sound around itself decides that not only does it not want to be consumed, but also that it’s time to strike back.
I was going to just try for “the yoghurt was frozen and had an edge” but that was far too mundane.
I’d lean toward it being crusty and old around the rim, and you were licking the container. It’s your tongue that’s bleeding.
I don’t know how you managed, but my goal for the next week will now be to cut myself on something even more implausible. I’m thinking applesauce, in honor of Thanksgiving.
Did the yogurt shank you because you refused to pay respect to the shot-callers in the prison yard?
Paolo:
Eeeeew, no.
But close. Crusty and old around the rim, and when I slid my finger under the lid to open in, it slashed my finger as I slid it across the bottom of the lid. The dairy product equivalent of a paper cut.
Then it was me staring at the blood dripping down my finger and going, “I can’t believe I just cut my self on yogurt.”
You mean you *don’t* lick the container?
Is that just me?
I managed to hit myself while throwing a punch once…but cutting yourself on yogurt might be a level above that in the “how the …” department
You mean you *don’t* lick the container?
You really lick the container?
I occasionally lick the tinfoil lid, but the plastic container? That’s disgusting.
I haven’t done this, but I *have* cut myself on garlic.
Man, I’ve done that before. And bled. Oh yes.
Perhaps we should start a club?
Oh, you weren’t supposed to explain!
I was just preparing my own explanation, involving a wildly improbable concatenation of pirates (the kind with cutlasses), yogurt, and your new netbook. And a giraffe.
Not, though, as improbable as cutting yourself on yogurt.
First of all, this just backs me up on my personal opinion that yogurt can’t really be good for you.
And until you gave us the answer, I was leaning toward, “Yogurt finally gave up on trying to get Scalzi to comment on it’s blog and said, Fuck It, let’s just hurt the dude.”
“And this is for what you did to my BFF bacon!”
Because all Whatever discussions eventually devolve into references to bacon.
This is all well and good, but curious minds want to know: Were you able to salvage the mission by not getting any of your blood on the yogurt, at least?
I’m slightly disappointed that I didn’t see this before you revealed the answer (though I would have been desperate with curiosity and I would have howled like a wounded puppy outside your house until you told me, except, you know, gazillions of miles away) but here’s what I was thinking:
You opened the yoghurt.
You were going to eat the yoghurt as a snack during some kind of handicrafting exercise – wood-turning, pottery, candyflossmaking – or even a chemical analysis.
You absent-mindedly placed the yoghurt on the part of the machine you were using which spins.
The yoghurt spun in place until it slewed out of the top of the pot in a fine jet which had sufficient sandblasty, waterjettish vigour to cut you like a laser.
The end.
I want a no-prize-of-any-kind-because-you’re-a-lunatic prize for trying.
NH
Wait, Brown Cow *nonfat* yogurt?
I thought the whole point of Brown Cow was the layer of congealed cream on the top. If you leave that off, what’s the point?
Or have they come up with some sort of “nonfat cream” to add? Maybe something like the “nonfat sour cream” you can buy, which as near as I can tell is lactic acid coagulated with methylcellulose.
The real question is: Has the yoghurt invaded Scalzi’s body, and is right now taking over his mind, there to bend him to it’s dark, creamy will?
Good Lord, Scalzi! Cut by yogurt? Yogurt?
Dude, seriously, stay away from the marshmallows and mashed potatoes, you could lose a limb.
And Jell-O, man, stay the hell away from Jell-O.
It’s not exactly the most manly thing I’ve ever done.
Dude, the most manly thing you ever did was marry Krissy.
Yogurt? Not so much.
I was imagining that you lived in the sort of universe where all your writings eventually come true and the yogurt had made a convenient container for one of your “Agent to the Stars” aliens, who, having a natural aversion to being eaten, struck back.
In my experience, yogurt usually waits until it hits the gut before striking back.
I cut myself on soap once. Doselle can testify. I think your yogurt misadventure trumps that.
Wow, that’s impressive! I will have to be more careful with my Brown Cow yogurt in the future so as to avoid becoming the next victim.
I once managed to break off a bracket of my braces while eating chocolate pudding…my orthodontist refused to believe it, but it happened.
That trumps my “I cut myself on a piece of bread” story.
I realize it’s cruel and heartless to enjoy merriment at the misfortunes of others…but dammit, Scalzi, laughing at this was a better ab workout than anything I get at the gym!
I do hope you aren’t scarred for life, however, either physically or psychologically. Particularly the latter, as I can envision the response you’d get if you tried to explain a phobia about attack yogurt…
My theory?
Talent.
I don’t feel so bad now, I cut myself on Tylenol a couple weeks ago…also whilest trying to fight my way into a new container. Damn those childproofers!
Damn. And all my interesting adventures in being cut involve exotic, but not actually surprising things. Like broadswords and macaws.
I bow before your superior self-mutilation skills.
You know, I sort of wish you hadn’t told us how you cut yourself. Now that I know it was crusty yogurt that did the trick it sort of ruins the WTF moment of trying to imagine someone cutting themself on soft yogurt…I mean, I thought it was bad that I cut myself on fresh grapes, and then here you come along saying “I cut myself on yogurt.” It was one of those moments where I actually had to reread your whole post just to make sure I didn’t misread. Like, maybe you really said Yoogart, and that’s some sort of Russian spike candy, or Yugrat, which is a Yugoslavian beer with glass in it…
Oi!
Is this the actual yogurt in question? I like Brown Cow’s stuff for the most part. But the idea of chocolate yogurt makes my nose do a weird wrinkly thing.
What I really hate is, you know, cutting my tongue on a candy cane or some other hard candy. You know, when they get bubbles in them that subsequently get stretched out, and then when you suck on the candy it dissolves a hole into the bubble with a really, really sharp edge.
But dude. Yogurt. That takes real talent.
I give my yogurt tubs to the stupid cat, who proceeds to lick them around in circles on the floor for the entertainment of the masses. Particularly funny when he adheres his face to them and starts backing up frantically.
You’ll pardon me if I don’t try to one-up you on this.
Not that I do that anyway, but this time out, I really don’t want you to take it personally.
Strangely enough, I cut my finger this morning on the plastic inner lid of a jar of blush powder. But I put a pirate bandaid on it and now it’s all bettarrrrrrrr!
John has been outed. His weakness is Yogurt.
Superman has Kryptonite. Scalzi has Yogurt.
Anyone going to LosCon next weekend just HAS to get him to sign a container of Yogurt. If he dares. Maybe the sight is enough to drive him away.
The bets around here are on frozen yogurt, but dried out works well, too, I guess.
Well, this has the “I ran over myself with my own car” story that I use on first dates beat all to hell.
I’ve done the garlic thing, but yogurt.. well, yogurt takes the sponge cake.
I cut myself on bacon once.
Jeff, I know someone who managed to run over himself twice with a Segway. Broke his leg, had to get it rodded and pinned.
For what it’s worth, my brother once burned instant pudding, without cooking it. I have no idea how he did it. It definitely tasted burned even though it was nothing but the pudding powder and the milk, beaten into submission and chilled.
I can accept that you got cut by yogurt. I get burned by Sour Patch Kids all the time (apparently the acid that makes them sour is bad for you in large doses). But chocolate yogurt? Ewww…. I can’t even imagine non-fruity yogurt. And I don’t want to.
I’m partial to coffee yogurt myself. And it’s good to see you getting your calcium. ;)
Scalzi: Actually, I think I’d like to see the speculation on how I might have done this. It’s probably more interesting than how I actually did it.
Well, after several gallons of yogurt and several trips to the hospital, I’ve managed to break a small bone in my wrist, burn the back of my retina, and cause hearing loss in one ear, with nothing but yogurt. But I’ll be damned if I can figure out how you cut yourself.
Blunt trauma, flash burns, and loud explosions were all I’ve managed. Yogurt-induced lacerations yet ellude me.
A small hint before I continue abusing myself for science?
Hmmm. Now HERE’s something that should be made a plot element on CSI.
“Did anybody do a splatter anlysis on the blood in the yogurt?”
So…do you know James Nicoll?
Are you perhaps related somehow?
I’m waiting for the Feds to see the implicit martial value in yogurt and other curded dairy products. Imagine a whole line of specially prepared deadly milk proteins sent to unpopular foreign seats of power. Everyone likes yogurt although not everyone will admit their love for this product. I just never thought that the words “Fruit on Bottom” might ever curry so much malice and mistrust.
@34
Chocolate yogurt is awesome. Before it became readily available here I used to mix instant hot cocoa into vanilla yogurt (or plain, with a little extra sweetner) to get chocolate yogurt.
(that should be, “instant hot cocoa powder“, that is, the stuff straight out of the can, not prepared hot cocoa.)
It was pretty darn good, too.
I was thinking you were listening to something bass heavy that then rendered the yogurt into a previously unseen (and deadly sharp) non-newtonian fluid.
OR
That some alien bounty hunter, paid to kill you, came down to earth, slipped into your groceries, and tried to off you to collect the cash.
thixotropic — Yay for new words. Non-Newtonian. Mmm.
Well, I once managed to cut my self on jelly [1].
I had sloppily allowed jelly to accumulate slopped over the rim, and then ignored it for an extended period so that it dried completely. When I went to open it again I discovered that the thin layer of jelly that had been against the very bottom surface of the lid was both rigid and sharp.
[1] Or perhaps it was jam or “preserves”. My apologies for letting down future historians this way.
Bonus points, by the way, for use of the word thixotropic. Correct use, no less. Way to go.
Oh, great. Now the TSA has another reason to not allow us to bring yogurt on airplanes.
My guess was that you poured the yoghurt into a water-jet cutter … the yoghurt-jet should cut quite well at 50,000 psi …
—–sharks
It’s a sign of the End Times, when even the yogurt — that most harmless and innocent of breakfast foods — takes a piece out o’ yah.
DG Lewis @58,
Please don’t give them ideas, they’re quite bad enough as it is. I’ve had everything from them from trashed checked luggage to a search lacking only the BCS, and I feel certain that even that’s only a matter of time.
Perhaps the question should be, what did you do to offend the yogurt? And, what did you do to it once it was finished mutilating you?
Did your wife offer comment on the yogurt injury?
You two have strikingly different super-powers.
Clearly your yogurt was made with active flesh-cutting bacteria.
I am quite impressed, sir. I take pride in the fact that I injure/ make a fool of myself in strange and interesting ways, but I have never done anything quite so epic as cutting myself on yogurt.
Here come the lawsuits–You’ll be legendary. Coffee too hot?; that’s nothing until the legal profession can rid us of this fermented food of morbidity. What if you had dropped it on your femoral artery?
Ex sang win nation
This explains why I’m so careful when I open my yoghurt.
Of course, that’s mostly just because I don’t want to get any on me.
And I thought I had set an impossible level to best when I broke my arm by falling off a swimming pool. You just outdid me.
In fact, I think you just had your own bluemarsupial moment.
Yogurt? Yogurt? Well I really do have to admit that that is a first for me. I mean, I could totally understand maybe a granola bar wrapper, or even a piece of cheddar… sharp cheddar that is, but come on… yogurt? Well maybe it was actually a semi-intelligent form of alien yogurt that was just trying to protect itself and and you approached it in what it perceived as a hostile manner and it struck out with its’ morphing capability in an effort to try to scare you off. :-)
Super glue. Close that whole up like a couple of sutures.
Looks more painful than a paper cut on the skin between the fingers.
My guess is that part of the “how” has to do with the non-fat quality of the yogurt. I still find it hard to believe. Are you sure there wasn’t a fragment of plastic wrapper disguised in the yogurt?
I actually was in the camp “how the hell….?” Then I told my wife. And she promptly informed me that, yes in fact a person can cut themselves on yogurt. And that she has. So I now actually believe that you can do anything. Scary, dude.
And now we all know what a valuable warning we lost when Americans dropped the h in yoghurt.
Yes, Nazareth could’ve made a ballad out of that: “Oeeh, Hoeee, Ypg hurts.”
#50, Pete: the moment I read this entry I had to think of James Nicoll as well.
I once bit into a corn chip and the point stuck into my gum behind my front teeth and drew blood. Deadly corn chips. Film at 11.
I am fairly confident, that with a well-written and emotionally-laden testimony, you could get a cash settlement, or at the very least, a COUPON, from Brown Cow.
I have had very good luck with diplomatic complaining.
Earned several boxes of rice pilaf by venting about one unshelled hazelnut. Could help with the food budget in a tough economy, dude.
Conversely, it also works nicely by sending suck-up letters. My college friend, with the last name SLICE sent a letter to PepsiCo, and was sent boxloads of swag with “SLICE” on it.