All this talk about Hanukkah and oil reminded me of the time my nephew, who was then about 4 and the type of kid who was mischievous and always getting into trouble, reached for a bottle of olive oil that his mother had left on the counter.

It was a liter size bottle made of glass, so that when he managed to get hold of it it did exactly what you’re now picturing.

There were large shards of glass all over the floor and a liter of olive oil trickling everywhere.

My sister-in-law managed to get hold of the glass pieces before any harm was done. That only took a minute.

The olive oil spill cleanup was like the BP accident in the Gulf. 

She used a few rolls of paper towels to get the puddles dry. But an oil slick? It takes more time than you think because even after it you wipe it dry there’s that film of oil underneath. So then you have to use soapy water and rinse that and dry that but there still may be a film underneath.

It goes on and on.

I’d bet that when they sold the house several years later there was still some olive oil under the fridge.

So —be warned! Be careful where you leave that oil bottle is all I can say. My sister-in-law still talks about that incident, which was more than 30 years ago.