A Fun Trick At Cracker Barrel

Last week, we went out to eat at a local Cracker Barrel restaurant.

We do this occasionally, because some folks in our house like the food there, because going out to eat means no one has to fix the dinner or wash the dishes, and because they like to buy a loaf of the Cracker Barrel sourdough bread to bring home.

If you've never made a grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough bread, you're missing a treat! (Sidebar: Don't skimp on the butter, use medium high heat - about 360° - use one slice of Swiss cheese and one slice of American, and put a few grains of kosher salt in between the cheese slices. Yes, it makes a difference to do it that way.)

While we were waiting for our order, I noticed something interesting about the hurricane lamp that Cracker Barrel puts on every table.

The little framed promo card device (you can see it just behind the salt shaker in the picture above) had some of the cards sticking out of the top a bit, so I knocked the frame on the table to re-seat the cards. When I did that, the flame in the lamp jumped! It flared up about one to two inches higher than normal!

Needless to say, I was fascinated. I knocked several things on the table, at different places, to see if it repeated. It did.

WHY does this happen? I can't figure it out.

I asked this (several times), and repeated the knocking on the table, to try to figure out this phenomenon. Needless to say, this earned me eye rolls from the others at the table, and comments such as "It doesn't take much to entertain some people, does it."

It can't be that the fuel surges up the wick - it happens too quickly, almost as fast as a camera flash. It can't be that a gust of air surges through from the wind of me knocking the table, because the flame flares even when I knocked underneath the table.

I can't figure it out.

I discovered that if I knocked underneath the table with the back of my wrist, the padding of skin there was sufficient to mask the sound of the knock, yet the bones were hard enough to produce the flare.

I practiced a couple of times, knocking underneath the table with my right hand, while coordinating "throwing my pointer finger" at the lamp with my left, so it looked like the flame flared up when I pointed at it.

When our waiter arrived at the table to say our food should be there shortly, I said, "I've got a question for you!" He waited. (After all, he IS a waiter, right?) "Why does your lamp flare up when I point my finger at it?" And I demonstrated three flareups, coordinated with three finger pointings.

He looked blank for half a second, then shrugged. "Must be magic." He just tossed that off disinterestedly and left.

Good grief! Didn't he have any curiosity at all? What's the matter with people these days? Or maybe that's why he's waiting tables and not in college somewhere? I know, he could be waiting tables so he can attend college, but with a non-curious attitude like that, somehow I doubt it.

Anyway, it was a fun thing to do, and I still haven't figured out why it works. But it does. I tried it on two other tables (unoccupied) on my way out of the restaurant, earning me more eye rolls, of course.

But the next time you're in a Cracker Barrel, try it. I bet it works for you. If the hurricane lamp is lit, then knock on the table and watch the flame. I bet it flares up.

If you can figure out why this happens, please let me know.