Thixotropy

Why have I put an image of a nationally recognized brand on my blog? For science!!

As innkeepers we have to be up-to-date on a myriad of subjects to be able to keep up with (or enlighten) our guests.

Nancy's esoteric conversation at today's breakfast concerned New York Harbor Tugboat operations. She remembered when her uncle was put out of work because the union lost the battle to retain cooks on board boats that were working 24/7. That was decades ago. The guest had been one of the strikers and couldn't believe a relatively young innkeeper in the boonies of NH knew about it, much less had a tie in.

My conversation was on thixotropic materials. With a smile on my face as I got ketchup for a guest I said "I've already shaken it for you." This was a man somewhat older than I am who's been ketchuping for half a century. Totally bewildered as why this was a service he used my 6 year old son's favorite word. "Why?"

"Because it's (ketchup) thixotropic and it comes out of the bottle easier if I break its colloidal suspension."

I know I was being cruel because I expected the reaction I got. Had I explained imaginary locations of electrons in cylindrical coordinate systems in Turkish, he wouldn't have looked more mystified. What's fun is converting someone like him to one of the illuminati (technically I should capitalize the 'I'). In answer to his "why" I said, "when ketchup sits, it becomes more solid than liquid. Shaking it makes it comes out easier." I never did get technical or talk about dilantant materials (opposite of thixotropic).

For fifty years he's been fighting the bottle. The ketchup bottle. Now because he came to an inn, he's learned a practical life skill which he can pass onto future generations, the word to describe it and the knowledge to explain it. This, I maintain, is what being an innkeeper is all about.

Thanks for reading,

Lon Henderson
Innkeeper
Sunset Hill House