Normally, I really like the cans of soup or fruit that come with the pull-tab to open, rather than requiring a can opener. Generally easier to open, and not messy. Plus, you don’t have to find the can opener.

However, it’s very bad if a can comes with the tab broken off the top (it looked attached, but came off when I touched it). It’s bad because, at least with Progresso Chicken Soup cans, regular can openers don’t work and there’s not an immediately obvious alternate opening method. This one required some ingenuity, courtesy of a suggestion from my wife. “How about you use a butter knife to pop it open?”

I very strongly, highly recommend not using the blunt end of a butter knife to hammer down the edge of a can top such as this. It explodes. Not just a little. It goes “pop” and ends up all over your hair, shirt, shorts, the floor, the counter, everything on the counter…you get the idea. And in this case, it wasn’t the generic, hypothetical “your,” it was me. My hair, shirt, shorts, etc. Did I mention ear? Yep, it went in my ear (one of them). And nearly my eye. I had my eyes closed after this happened to protect from the splatter, so I couldn’t see my wife on the couch watching me. In a concerned voice she asked “are you okay?” but was otherwise silent. I wiped the soup out of my eye and looked at her only to notice she was trying very hard not to laugh very, very hard. Not trying hard not to; laughing hard. I chuckled to show I saw the humor and she burst out laughing. It was actually pretty funny, minus the cleanup which is most definitely not funny. That’s okay, I’ll have help. I was making the soup for her, after all, and following her suggestion.

Now, if I could just get all the soup out of my ear…