If you’re living with ADHD, you’re no stranger to the infamous ADHD side quest. You can always spot a fellow ADHD bestie by the graveyard of random, lightly-used piles of discarded hobbies. In my own closet, there are boxes of paints, several yoga mats, a “teach yourself calligraphy” set, a half-made miniature dollhouse, a handmade abaya with the seams ripped out on one side, several embroidery kits, a few forgotten wigs, and a magnificent palette of face paints.

In 2017, I went through a health craze. I was following YouTube accounts like Freelee the Banana girl (cringe), planting my own lettuce, and attempted veganism for the promised spiritual connection to the earth (it wasn’t for me). I had my first taste of kombucha and loved it. I couldn’t get enough of the stuff. But it was about $4 a bottle, and I was flat broke.

That’s when I discovered that you could make your very own kombucha at home. The revelation! I pored over tutorials online, and ultimately spent about $50 that I didn’t have on special glass bottles–“you MUST use glass bottles with a flip top!”–and a few kombucha “mothers” from a sketchy blog site.

I spent a happy afternoon boiling tea, adding various flavors, and filling the bottles with tea, sugar, and healthy bacteria. I sealed them up and stored them in a dark, unused cabinet for safekeeping.

If you know anything about ADHD, you know that the constant hobby-sampling is a dopamine-seeking behavior. ADHD is primarily driven by dopamine deficiency. When we try something new, we get a delicious dopamine hit.

For a second. Then the dopamine drops, we get bored, and we move on to something else.

I’m sure you can see where this is going, dear reader.

I forgot about the damn bottles.

I moved on to working, mechanical 3-D puzzles, and those kombucha bottles sat in the kitchen gathering dust.

For weeks.

One day, I was cheerfully crocheting a new hat in July. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the air conditioning was on full-blast, and the house was peaceful and quiet.

Then a bomb went off. Or several gunshots. I couldn’t be sure what the earsplitting BOOM BOOM BOOM could possibly be, but I shrieked and fell off the couch. Something shot round the corner, slid across the vinyl floor, and SPLATTED against the far wall before scrabbling in place for a moment and ultimately finding safety beneath the coffee table.

Then the house was silent again.

I crawled over to look, and found a wet, shivering, traumatized Pips the Cat.

Pips was a feral longhair calico that I found under our porch in rural Alabama as a small kitten. I’d brought her inside and made her a pet, and she’d never forgiven me. She did not like to be cuddled or bothered. She spent most of her time nesting in the most shadowy corners she could find–under the guest bed, behind the fridge, and in the dark recesses of empty kitchen cabinets.

That poor, wet kitty smelled like vinegar, and I realized immediately what had happened. I ran to the kitchen, and sure enough, a flood of over-brewed, vinegary fermented tea was dripping from the cabinets where the homemade kombucha had been.

Pips had been nesting in the cabinet when the kombucha bottles, left too long, exploded. Thankfully, the glass was thick, and though it broke, it didn’t shatter into a million shards. Pips was furious (I didn’t see her again for a week), but she was physically unharmed.

And do you know what? She stayed out of my kitchen cabinets after that.

CAT TAX: