unblog my mind: Mentos Mints And Diet Coke

Yesterday, I was at my Sayang Manja's place after we had our little shopping spree at Geylang. Little Naufal was around with Izan. They were playing around and occasionally came up to me to get me involved. I liked playing with children and I enjoy playing with them.

Naufal was having some food in his mouth while walking or running around and beckoning me with his own baby language to participate in his entertainment slot -- at times laughing and at times googling away still wanting me to understand his dialogue (more or less a soliloquy to me).

While I was talking to my fiancee, he came running to me, patting my thighs, trying to tell me something. I looked at him and saw him puking out the food from his small mouth. He had taken more than he could chew or swallow.

I held my palm out to collect the contents from his mouth and realised that they were unchewed peanuts. I told Farah that Naufal does not like peanuts since he was throwing it out of his mouth.

As he emptied his mouth, he kept coming nearer to me, his face changing from a smile to a frown, moving his head left and right continuously. He then pushed me and went under my legs. It was a funny scene as both my fiancee and I were laughing. We thought that he really disliked peanuts and was trying very hard to get that awful taste from his mouth by shaking his head vigorously.

The episode ended when he darted out from beneath my legs and ran towards his mother who was at the dining table.

Yes, it ended there but the event kept replaying in my mind over and over again. Not that I wanted to relive the comedy but that I wanted to understand little Naufal.

It was very late at night after I had put down the phone that ends my day with Farah that I realised what happened.

I had to call her back and explained to her my theory. I told my sleepy Sayang Manja that I had failed Naufal when he came running towards me for HELP!

He was eating peanuts. Merely a year old child eating a mouthful of peanuts. What do you expect? He cannot chew them and swallowed wholly most of the peanuts. When you have a mouthful, you tend to miss that tunnel to the stomach and a stray pea might have ventured into your windpipe. A small pea but it is big enough to block a child's windpipe.

He was choking!

No wonder his face changed. No wonder he was pushing me. He was trying to communicate to me. He had to go down to dislodge that small pea from his aesophagus. He came down to me expecting me to help him but what did I do? I was laughing!

Recalling this incident, I felt dissappointed. I felt fear. Fear of losing cute little Naufal. Fear of losing one of your loved ones.

My memory flashes back in time ......

At that time, I was a four year old boy playing with my sisters in my kampung house at Tanah Merah. It was a cool afternoon. My sisters and I were laughing, running around with our favourite Mentos mints in our mouth. Our dad had given us those mints. They were colourful Mentos mints. There were the normal white ones, the red ones and the blue ones.

Out of the blue, my sister, Faridah came running to me. Her eyes were openned wide and she did not say anything. Her mouth was openned. She kept pointing at it. I did not understand what she was trying to tell me.

Our dad, who was watching us, grabbed my sister and held her firmly. He then put his palm on her stomach and pushed upwards forcing the remaining air to be released out of her mouth.

Something jetted out of her mouth and flew across the living room! It was a white Mentos mint. My sister started to make noise and we continued playing. Everything went back as per normal.

Now that I am all grown up recalling that incident, it is indeed scary! I could have lost my sister if not for the calm reaction of our dad.

Do you know that there are incidents of childhood death involving mentos mints? Last week a little boy died in Brazil after eating MENTOS and drinking Coca-Cola together.

A year before, the same accident happened with another boy in Brazil.

There was an experiment done by mixing Mentos mints with Coca Cola ----> http://www.wlbz2.com/news/watercooler/article.aspx?storyid=44763

They utilised two household items -- Mentos mints and a 2-litre bottle of Diet Coke.

The experiment mixed Mentos mints with Diet Coke and it makes a reaction.

Woah! Olde Faithful has just gushed out!

Soda shoots up the nozzle top!

"A coke is actually a super-saturated solution of carbonic acid or carbon dioxide," said Professor Mark Hayes. What professor Hayes means is it's not a chemical reaction but a physical one.

"You stored up a bunch of bubbles and they can't get out and when you throw the Mentos in there it gives us a whole lot of places to start the bubbles," said Hayes. It was something they figured out years ago back in small-town Maine.

Just imaginge if the Coca Cola bottle is a child's stomach. The carbonated drink could have flooded his lungs.