Exploding soda can of death

Well, maybe not of death...

You may not be aware, but there is a spot in the rear of your (or at least our) refrigerator where the cold air flows down and which is much colder than the overall temperature. We discovered this a couple of years ago when we started buying cases of bottled water and stacked them from the rear of the refrigerator to the front. When we would reach the rear row, the middle bottle would be frozen solid from this local jet stream. Normally this would not be a big deal. The bottle would be moved to the door and over a few days would thaw to liquid really cold instead of solid really cold.

Recently, we bought more soda than we normally do and Beth placed some in that sweet spot. A few days later I was working on the laptop (as I am prone to do) and I hear a loud noise followed by the noise that humanity associates with the ice maker dropping ice. I opened the freezer and did not notice a large amount of overflowing ice or anything else out of the ordinary. So I went about my business. Later on that day I opened the refrigerator and found a not-so-nice surprise.

For those of you who are interested, this is what a soda can looks like after it has exploded.

For those who are wondering what happened to the the top...


Here is an interior shot of the aftermath. This is the shelf below the explosion.


By the way, as Beth can testify, exploding frozen soda gets into pretty much every nook and cranny.