self-flagellation time!

You saw this carafe in my McCrarey post:

There's probably a name for this type of carafe, but I wouldn't know what that name is. When the small pitcher came to our table at Tabom Brazil, I wrestled with the massive, heavy-plastic top to remove it, and it was a chore, refusing to budge until I applied a great amount of torque to it. The top of the carafe had a weird little circle at its center, and I did wonder whether that circle was a slit through which to pour the water, but the rest of my mind said, "Nah," and I kept wrestling with the top every time a new pitcher of water arrived at our table.

The third time I wrestled with the top, a manager finally came over and said something like, "No, you just pour it like this—" and sure enough, the water flowed easily through the circle cut into the top. As John commented, the manager didn't bust my balls about it.

At the previous post, John had joshingly commented about this "highlight" of our Saturday meet-up, so I thought I'd post about it to announce to the world what a doofus I am.

I've had this sort of trouble before. Ages ago, when I first became addicted to those tiny bottles of Martinelli sparkling apple juice, I tried removing the bottle caps with my pocket knife's bottle-cap remover. It was months later that I bothered to look closely at the cap, where I saw the instruction "TWIST" written in all-caps thereupon. But I was foiled again: trying to twist off the cap with my bare hands requires skin that's tougher than mine. So now, when I twist off a Martinelli bottle cap, I use a piece of tissue paper that's been folded several times over.