It's ten degrees outside and I'm counting down the days until a plane drops me off in the Keys. To get me in the spirit I thought I would put some Buffett on and tell you about some of my family's favorite hobbies.
I'll start with my wonderful wife who does so much good around this house it's blasphemous to talk about her bad habits but nobody said I was husband of the year. Father of the year, sure, but no one has accused me of being husband of the year. Let me tell you about my wife's most recent distraction. She has this fantastic new habit of trying to figure out how powerful our garbage disposal is. She started out by tossing relatively normal stuff down there like left over food. She graduated into chicken wing bones and plastic tops, like sippy cups. This was all very entertaining for all of us. She then decided to take it up a notch and move on to household items. It started with paperclips. They don't look all that intimidating but Mr. Garbage disposal didn't like that too much. The first time the disposal jammed it took a few nice swears, a pair of pliers, some hard questioning like, "now why did you toss the paperclip into the disposal? Uh-huh, and then why did you turn it on? Right, right, but why did you keep it going right up until it jammed? Oh, of course, you wanted to see if it was going to go down. Makes total sense!
Then the binder clip got tossed into the disposal. I think the intoxicating opportunity of both plastic and metal formed into one sleek office supply item was too much for her and she couldn't help herself, so into the disposal it went. Mr. Disposal with a grunt, a puff and a belch came to a screeching halt. After much swearing this time, further questioning and many a pliers like instrument used to grab hold of it, Mr. Disposal refused to take any more abuse. What to do, what to do? A man grunt was released and there was only one thing left to do - take the whole garbage disposal apart. Three hours later, much, much, much more choice language and miraculously the garbage disposal gods took pity on me and it was put back together and was back to operating. I received a minor round of applause from my wife. We put the wife in disposal rehab, packed up and moved to a new house.
Problem. The new house has an gargantuan total gangsta' garbage disposal. Most are continuous feed, but this thing was batch feed. It's a safety measure so when you're sticking your whole arm into the innards of the disposal to fish out things your wife fancies to throw in, it can't turn on and well, dispose of your hand. It uses a magnetic lid/seal and that's what turns it on. It's also a stage 3, believe it!, stage 3 disposal so there are three levels of chomping making sure no matter what is cascading down there this beast will chew it. We thought the meetings were helping Care but I think the siren of the disposal was more than she could bear. One day, while I was outside with the kids, they didn't need to see this, shoveling she broke. 194 days of unclogged disposal went down the drain and irresistibly she went for the whole coup de' grace, a full piece of silverware. There was smoke. There was fire. There may or may not have been a minor explosion. There was an insatiable itch that was finally scratched. Kablamo! My wife took out the Insinkerator Evolution Cover Control 9000. Game, set, match.
Me, what's going on in here? Wife, "nothin' why?" I could tell by that capricious look something was up. She couldn't hide it any longer. The bead of sweat on her brow was her undoing. She confessed. "I did it! I finally did it! I fed a spoon to our disposal....and I liked it!" I couldn't even figure out how she sucked Mr. Utensil so far down the disposal. Oh, right she was testing all 3 stages. The disposal is so long that there is only about an inch of clearance from the bottom of the disposal to the cabinet so off to Home Depot for trip number one to buy a hex wrench. Sure, I have 40 of them but not one that will fit with so little clearance. So, as I'm perusing the shelves I decide no way I want to make multiple trips so I buy the biggest set they have. I now have the sweetest set of SAE and metric hex wrenches one could ever aspire to have in their tool set. Well, I get that baby turning and nothing. It won't budge. Guess what? This thing is so cavernous I don't have a pliers long enough to reach that deep into it. It's literally going to eat my pliers. I said I only wanted to take one trip to Home Depot so I went to Lowes with both boys. We grunted all the way there. It was some sweet man time. We buy the longest pliers they have and by that I mean I literally asked the tool department guy if this is the longest pliers he has. With a slight wink, which was a little awkward I'll admit, he replied, you bet buddy. I love this small town. We came home and did the only thing one could do in this kind of situation we, and by we I mean me, drank a beer. New Glarus is to me like spinach is to Popeye. The pupils dialated, a new found focus appeared, knuckles cracked and it was on. With the right tools we were able to wrestle the silverware out of the disposal. Viola! My wife is back in rehab, I'm relatively certain I have every tool possible to disassemble, pry or destroy any stuck object in a garbage disposal and we can now go back to dumping all sorts of treasures back into our sink.
For the record, the metal piece is yet unidentified. And by the way, dear, the garbage disposal is making a funny noise again. What would I do without you???
ReplyDelete