Garbage Disposal

Have you ever had your garbage disposal go out on you? Well, this past week, it went out on Katie and me. Let me backtrack the story many years ago. When I was living by myself, I never had the disposal go out on me. I hardly put anything significant in quantity or size down the sink. However, a few years ago while living with my roommates, the disposal went out. Thinking the motor was dead and I'd have to fork over a lot of money to repair it, my dad sent his handyman over to check it out. The first thing he did was get under the sink, hit some red reset button that I have never known about, and the disposal started to run smoothly. "Ha, neat trick," I thought. It'd be something that I would never forget.

Since I've been married to Katie, I've come to know that she is great at clogging things. Ha-ha! :) A month or so ago, she had shoved a bunch of food down the drain, and the water wouldn't go down. Not only that, the disposal wasn't working. Being calm and smooth about it, I walked my macho behind to the sink, laid on my back, and pushed the red reset button. Sure enough, the garbage disposal started to work again, the water went down, and I came off as the "hero."

However, this week I met my match. Katie really put me to the test this time. I got home after making a run from the grocery store with Sid for some guacamole dip ingredients. Katie's first words to me were, "Umm...I think I broke the garbage disposal." Sure enough, the thing wasn't working. She had shoved a bunch of rice down the sink. So, being confident as ever, I dropped to my back and pushed the red button. Nothing. I pushed it again. Nothing. "Huh. That's weird." So I unplugged the thing, reached my hand inside the drain, and pulled out as much gunk as I could. The water still wouldn't go down. So I started creating a suction with my hand/arm. It was like a self-made plunger. Eventually the water slowly went down. For about 30 minutes I was pulling out the food or pushing it down. Every once in a while I'd hit the red button again to no avail. Sid even suggested running some boiling hot water down it to clear it out, and that didn't work either. Eventually Sid went home as I faced my opponent alone.

Finally I just nearly gave up. I tried about everything. Katie then helped try deducing the problem for a while with no success. That's when Katie remembered our Home Improvement 1-2-3 book from Home Depot that we got as a wedding gift (thank you Bob Horne)! She flipped straight to the garbage disposal page. It informed us to fill both basins up to 4" of water, cover up the clogged side, and use a plunger to plunge the other side. This worked great because it allowed the water to finally flow freely. So the clogging stopped. However, the disposal still wasn't running. We could hear the motor, but the blades weren't doing a darn thing. I pushed the red reset button again, I played with the blades, and I even used the stick side of the plunger to push and move the blades around. I got nothing.

Katie said, "Maybe we should pray about it, walk away for a moment, and come back to it." She's so sweet. Although neither of us actually prayed, I ended up walking away for a second, but not before I hit the red button one last time. The moment I left, Katie tried to move the blades around like I did earlier. Lo and behold!! The garbage disposal started to run again. After all that work, it started to run even better than it did before. So here's an ode to you, garbage disposal. Ode to you!