An Eventful Non-event

A funny thing happened the other day. It sounds trivial on the surface, and there's probably a reasonable explanation for it. But I haven't found it.

I had two bottles of laundry soap sitting under the kitchen sink. One was almost finished, the other had just been started, so I thought to pour the one into the other. (I'd actually planned this out, but won't bore you with those truly trivial details.)

As I was pouring, I heard something strange, not far away: a soft pat, pat of drops of liquid. What was so weird about it was that it wasn't anywhere near the bottles, but in a quite different location. The drips landed in an area about 7 cm long and 1-2 cm wide, about 36 cm away from the bottle - that is, 20 cm straight ahead from my left hand. When I stopped pouring, so did the drips. The whole thing lasted maybe 10-15 seconds. Maybe: I wasn't timing it.

My first thought was "You're just being sloppy." But I wasn't. If the detergent had gone glub-glub, it would've been a simple matter making the connection. But that would've only been at the start, when the stream first hit the surface; from that point on, all would be quiet. This was an irregular but constant dripping, which stopped when the pouring was done. Besides, the pouring was smooth - easy, gradual, no spilling. Not a hint of suddenness in the action at any point.

Being right-handed, the full bottle was about 36 cm away from where the drips were landing; the bottle was about 25 cm tall, making the rim almost 44 cm away. And, as mentioned, I was careful about pouring - no shaking involved whatsoever. Perhaps it was just lumpy leftover laundry detergent? No, I've never seen laundry soap curdle. And this stuff was uniformly consistent.

Now I was pouring with one hand, and holding a cap from one of the bottles. So it would make sense to figure that the drips came from the cap. After all, I do use it to measure dosage when I do laundry. But I always rinse it when finished, because crusty caps are annoying and disgusting. And I hadn't done laundry in a couple weeks. So no, the cap was dry - and even if it weren't, how could drips travel horizontally from a cap that was being held statically, i.e. in one place?

If anyone has a plausible explanation, I'd really like to hear it. Apologies in advance: If my responses seem contentious, it's not against you. It's just that I'd like to think I've checked every possibility. Nothing seems to add up. (And no, there were no holes in either bottles or caps, as if that could explain drips of laundry soap arcing almost half a meter.) So I appeal to both of you, dear readers, giving as faithful an account as I could.