My wife decided to brew her own kombucha. In order to do this, she needed to purchase a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). Amazon delivered a microbial mat, or pellicle, which are fancy words for "gelatinous wad of phlegm that ferments in a jar."
I was sitting there one day, minding my own business, when she approached me with something in her cupped hands. "Say hello to our baby SCOBY!" she said, explaining that some people talk to them.
The problem is, I'm not some people. I jerked my head away from the flesh-colored glob and told her, "I'm not doing that."
She did do that, however, and welcomed it to our home.
A few weeks later, walking through the kitchen, I heard a tiny voice from inside a large glass jar on top of the refrigerator. "Let me out, papá," the SCOBY infant said, "for my juices are now ready."
My wife's not into the occult, but she'd unwittingly created a golem. I groaned, "Oh, goddammit, my wife's a tulpamancer."
There was a time when I wouldn't talk to it. Now at the end of 2022 I'm asking to drink the SCOBY's brown excretions. I hear it giggling as it makes more.
Happy New Year, li'l golem.