Those of you who have been internet denizens for a while should be familiar with the phrase, “You will not believe what this is”. You see that and similar phrases on flashing pictures all over the place, saying “Click me!”

I’ve noticed a similar tactic used on radio and television, where, “Coming up after the break, in the world of dogsled racing, you will not believe what Shep has done this time. Stay tuned.”

The goal, of course, is to get you to hear a word from the sponsors.

Which reminds me, I have these things that I’m trying to sell….

Anyway, one of my sons bought a bunch of buttons and a joystick and wanted to put them all together in a box as a game controller for using on a computer. This particular project has been ongoing for several months, as projects tend to go on for a long time when the person who wants the end product is not equipped to do the work. So, for this project, I manufactured a box and a couple of aluminum plates to hold the buttons. And the entire thing was put together a few days ago.

I will say, to his credit, I did none of the soldering of the wires to the circuit board, which was pulled out of a working game controller. And he did it with only a few mistakes. Not bad, considering there were about 40 connections to make.

Anyway, back to the “You will not believe” part of the tale.

I told him to paint the box black and then we would coat it in clear polyurethane. That is one of my favourite finishes, actually, polyurethane over paint. I find that it makes even the cheapest paint perform very well and look great.

So, I went to my workshop and searched for a can of water-based polyurethane that I knew was there. I found it and brought it to the kitchen, where the finishing work was taking place. I shook the can. Nothing moved or made a sound.

“That’s weird. I’m shaking this but nothing’s happening.”

“Maybe it’s completely full,” my son suggested.

“No, these cans are never that full.” So, I put it down and got a chisel to open it. I mentioned to my son the best way to open such a can was to pry gently all the way around the lid. It slowly lifts the lid and doesn’t distort it. I mention this because I vaguely remember many years ago prying off the lid of a can of paint with a standard screwdriver at one spot on the edge and actually curling the lid up. That, of course, never went back on.

When I opened the can, the contents looked normal for water-based urethane. And it was not completely full. It had not, however, been opened before. I bought it new a year or so ago (might be as many as three years, who knows how much time passes) and never opened it because I discovered I still had some in another can.

“I guess it’s skinned over,” I said. I took a stick that I had previously used to stir latex paint and poked at the top of the polyurethane. It went right in. I tried stirring it. It was no longer a liquid, but it was also not solid. “It looks like that awful lychee pudding you bought,” my son said.

And it really did. So, what you would not believe is that a can of polyurethane magically transformed into inedible lychee pudding. Well, I think all lychee pudding is inedible. And the pudding consistency was throughout the entire can. None of it was liquid at all.

I did manage to use it on the box. It needed to be mixed with a bit of water. It didn’t become completely smooth, but it went on like a rub-on finish.

So, I have no idea what happened there. It was stored in a prime location, on a shelf in my not-too-hot, not-too-cold basement. Maybe it froze before I bought it, but the can is not distorted. I do know that it’s not right, though, since I had a gallon can of that stuff for ten years that never went bad, in spite of being mostly empty for over half of those years.

Surely, one of the world’s greatest mysteries….