Hot Soup and the Thermometer

This incident happened to me when I was hardly two years old. As a child, I was very mischievous and used to be under the constant watch of my mother and elder sister.

One day, when my mother and sister were busy with something in the house, I happened to get hold of a thermometer and started playing with it. It was lunch time and my mother was arranging the dining table.

She brought a large bowl of hot soup from the kitchen and placed it on the table. As soon as she went into the kitchen I playfully dropped the thermometer into the hot soup.

The bowl was large and full to the brim and so the thermometer could not be seen. Everyone finished the lunch but didn’t notice it as the soup was still left.

After lunch, when my mother was transferring the left over soup to another bowl, she was horrified to find the thermometer. It didn’t take her long to guess that it was me who did it.

Luckily, the thermometer had remained intact in the hot soup. If it had broken and the mercury in it had leaked, I would have become the perpetrator of a great mishap.