Steaks were flopped across the charcol-blackened grill. Uncle Mark, notoriously both lazy and creative, wedged the can of beans between a log and the hot iron firepit rim. "Who's gonna want to wash the pot?"

They forgot about the beans as both conversation and beer flowed liberally.

Grandpa was sixteen feet away, outfitted in a new red anorak, walking towards Granny and Uncle Mark. Auntie was flipping the steaks. Juices oozed from the meat and hissed into the embers.

Suddenly, there was a BANG - like a shotgun - that echoed back across from the rocky hills.

Grandpa yelped as a veritable hail of beans plastered his back. Upon inspection, the pattern was remarkably similar to buckshot spray. Auntie, who had been so carefully turning those steaks, was striping off her clothing while screaming obscenties at Uncle Mark. She was covered in a gluey paste of beans and burning embers.

This was a classic science experiment. Exhibit One: Boyle's Law - beans heat up, expand, and explode. Exhibit Two: Newton's Law - beans go forward, can goes backward... the bottom dented in a good half-inch from smashing against the back of the firepit.

The coyotes are noteably silent in those rocky hills.

Uncle Mark has found a flashlight and is searching the site for the steaks. He finds them, rinses them in the motorhome, and zaps them for a couple minutes.

The lid of the can was never found, even in the daylight. Perhaps it was sent up into orbit. Or rather it flew over the desert and butterfly fluttered to the bottom of an aqua blue pool in a retirement complex in Phoenix. Or maybe, just maybe, it remains lodged in one of those saguero cacti.

(True story. As dictated by half-drunk ex-english teacher grandpa. The Chilean boxed wine was working its wonders.)