So the kids are in bed and its Crushendo racking night. And degassing
night. I have obviously bought a whip degasser specially for the
occasion. I have been moving bits of equipment into the bathroom all
night in between gets the kids down to sleep, and I am all ready. I am
totally organised. I even have the scissors that are going to cut the
corner of the baggy of chitin sanitised. Oh yeah. My shit is wired so
tight, I can actually relax.

So I sanitise the whip degasser, add my sulphite and sorbate to the
wine and we're in business....I get my drill and put it over the end
of the degasser, and tighten up, righty tighty, righty tighty until it
wont go any further. Then I carefully assist the end of the degasser
into the wine. It becomes obvious that drills are righty tighty when
you are looking into the drill bit hole, not down the shaft, when the
entire degasser falls in my wine.

And sinks.

Not good.

Including, of course, the part that has just whacked and clanked
against my drill, which, obviously, has the usual grain-deep detritus
of life as a drill all over it.

I dash to sanitise my stirring spoon, and try to retreive the
degasser.

It is not going to happen.

The degasser actually has a bung built onto it to prevent this exact
calamity. Be sure and observe before you use yours that said bung is
for a standard glass demijohn, not a wide mouthed better bottle.
Slipped right in.

There is now only one solution. I will have to sanitise another carboy
as quick as poss and transfer the wine into that, retrieve the
degasser then start again. Off to my wine room,.

Out of carboys.

Only one solution now, I dash to the kitchen, grab the carboy I just
racked the wine out of (a better bottle, thank god...easy clean) and
clean it frantically in the bath, resanitise it, and I am ready to go.
Luckily I have racked into a lightweight better bottle, so I can hold
the 6 gal carboy just enough to tip it into the funnel I will use to
transfer it.

Oh did I say I was strong enough to do that?

As I start, I discover I am exactly one millionth of an ounce less
strong than is actually required, and instead of the wine coming out
the neck and into the funnel, the angle is just weak enough that the
wine comes down the neck, over my completely unsanitised right hand
holding the neck of the carboy, and then into the new sanitised
vessel.

This is bad.

But not quite as bad as the fact that my right hand is also now slippy
and wet with wine, and I lose more grip, and wine is dribbling over my
slipping weakening hand all over the floor, causing me nearly to
tears.

I manage to bring my knees into play to assist the angle,
accomplishing contortions any model for a book on the kama sutra would
be proud of. I get the wine transferred.

Obviously, it is nine PM, I have had less than six hours sleep per
night because of sick kids the last two nights, and my wife is working
her third twelve hour night shift, and I am promised and bound to be
out of the bedroom (and en-suite where this occurred, now drenched in
corvino) before she gets home at quarter after seven. And have cleaned
up after myself.

This is funny, right?