Mysterious Liquids in the Basement...

Monday's BBQ led to the discovery of a cup of unidentified yellow liquid in the basement washroom. At the time, I set the cup aside on the counter not really knowing how to deal with it - my first thought : since it's in the washroom, it's most likely a urine sample. But who in this house required a urine sample, and why would they pee into a cup and then leave it there on the counter without cleaning it up? And how long has that substance been sitting there? I left the cup on the counter and forgot about the mysterious yellow liquid until today when Shirley asked me, via msn, to dispose of a container of soup hidden in a cooler, also in the basement.

Honestly, is it wrong of me to want to be part of a 'normal' family sometimes?

Shirley explained that Kevin's mom had made a pot of soup for them to enjoy over the weekend but that the soup had been left forgotten (perhaps on purpose) in the fridge. When Kevin's mom came over for the BBQ on Monday, they apparently snuck the soup container out of the fridge (in fear that Kevin's mom would open the fridge and see her soup still in the container most likely rotting away) and into the basement to be rid of later. Since they had once again forgotten about the soup, I was asked to flush it down the toilet for them. One mystery solved.

I went to the basement to try to identify the yellow liquid sitting in the cup on the counter of the basement washroom. Here are my observations:
1) a very deeper yellow liquid (if it is urine, someone's not drinking enough water)
2) held from a distance, the liquid does not smell. If I waft the fumes with my hand (like they teach you in science class in high school - never stick your nose right up to the substance!) it smells very faintly like pinesol cleaner
3) pouring a little bit of the contents down the drain, the liquid does not flow viscously, but is rather free flowing like water.
4) adding water from the tap to the half-emptied contents of the cup, I was suprised that there was some lathering but not as much as a drop of dish detergent would give.
5) the cup holding the contents of the liquid belongs to the dish collection that we used in Waterloo at our Shakespeare apartment. The rest of the dishes were not found in the boxes in the basement hallway - I believe they are actually sitting outside in the garage waiting for a garage sale to provide them with new owners. (And this is why my mother says never to buy dishes from garage sales - you never know what they were used for before!) So how does one cup from a dish collection that is sitting in the garage, end up in the basement washroom and then filled with yellow liquid??

Now the observations might lead us now to conclude that the contents was perhaps some sort of deep yellow cleaner (perhaps Pinesol!). But doesn't urine lather? And doesn't urine loose it's fierce ammonia smell after it's been sitting out in the open for days? even weeks? I checked the cupboards and there is no Pinesol.

What do you think? Anyone up for an experiment? If you are, here's what to do:
1) Urinate into a cup and leave it in the washroom on the counter for say...a week. If you'd like, keep a log and keep track of the smell as well as the colour of the liquid
2) After a week, make a note of the colour and waft the smells to your nose - make a note on the scents as well. Then pour out half of the liquid and note it's viscousity.
3) Add tap water to the remaining half of the liquid still in the cup and note if the liquid lathers.
4) Share the results in a comment to this blog entry.

Are the observations the same as those I've observed above? If so, then I think it would be safe to assume that the yellow liquid in the cup was indeed urine. I'll have to find out WHO would do such a dirty thing!

My guess would be Ju. ;) whahahahaha.