You'll Say WOW Everytime

For this story to make sense you need to know three things.

1: My roommate, Catherine , has in the past-much to my amusment and entertainment-clogged the "in-sink-erator" (I know that is like a Dr. Doofenschmertz name for a garbage disposal but scout's honor that's its brand). She has only done it a few times but based on the amount I talk about it you would think it happened quite frequently.

2: We had an "As Seen On TV" Party at our house recently and there is currently a huge table full of As Seen On TV stuff in our garage.

3: Not too long ago, our landlords replaced our in-sink-erator with a new, top-of-the-residential line disposal. I literally quote, "It should be able to take care of anything you have".

Now fast forward a few weeks. My roommate was on the East Coast and I was holding down the fort. I found an amazing little market called North Park Market (you should go, it's on H street) and got a few huge pineapples. I happily peeled, cut, and ate pineapple. After finishing the cutting process I decide to have another go at propagating pineapples. I quite happily peeled the leaves of the pineapple and then decided to put them in the sink. I decided to take this new disposal for a test run. I guess it is fair to also tell you that ground up pineapple leaves have the consistency of a old dish rag. I think it is also fair to assume that you can guess what happened soon after the grinding ensued.

Of course, the other side of the sink starts to fill up with the bits of pineapple, strawberry tops, an orange peel, a few other unidentifiable pieces of previous vegetative matter. I don't panic yet, I being a well-rounded individual have a basic understanding of disposals and pipes. I know that you need to get the clog out and the hope that the clog is not so far in the wall you have to call some guy named Joe who likes to show his butt cleavage.

I open the doors and get the allen wrench. I turn this way and that..who knows what lefty or righty it needs but at this point I still fell confident that I will be able to unclog this sink and no one, including Catherine, will find out about it-this of course would lead to the end of my bit about Catherine and the disposal and I hate losing good material. After quite a bit of turning I try the water, try the grinder, try the hoping, try the mild cursing-no luck.

I decide the best idea is to empty the sink of water and try again. Some people may have thought that I scooped out the water. Those people would be a far sight more sensible than I. I thought the best way to empty the sink of water was to drain it from the bottom. I moved the various sundries from under the sink (not all of them mind you because again that would show some foresight) and started to unscrew the pipe on the left side of the sink. I underestimated a few things in this manuever; 1) the amount of water in the sink, 2) the comparative smallness of the pot that I found, 3) the amount of pressure that was pushing the water downwards, 4) the position of the L bend pipe, which made an amazing deflector for the aforementioned chunky water.

You can imagine my surprise the water didn't neatly fall into the pot like I had imagined but instead shot out (or more appropriately out and up) of the pipe all over me, the inside of the cabinet, all of the things I had left inside the cabinet, and the floor. So there I am sitting in a puddle of water with bits of pineapple in my hair. I undid every pipe under the sink and each time more water filled my already soggy kitchen. I couldn't get the blasted thing to work so I put all the pipes back together and decided that I would wait until Catherine got home and confess my sins. As I stood up, I noticed the drain plug. I plugged up the left side of the sink and turned on the disposal with a muttered prayer. Sure enough that wad of pineapple fiber shot through the pipes and into the ocean (you know all drains lead the to the ocean...Nemo fans?)

At that moment I felt a wave of triumph and then I looked around; I was covered in soggy clothes and had disposal gunk all over me, there was an inch of standing water in the cabinet, every thing under our sink was dripping and soaked, the floor was awash in water and bits of pineapple. My heart sunk....then I remembered the ShamWow in the garage! I gleefully ran out to the garage and got the brand spanking new felt-ish cloth and sure shootin' that ShamWow soaked up about a gallon of water. Again my life was flooded (pun definitely intended) with a sense of victory. Looking around at the mayhem that I had created I just smiled to myself and said "wow". It's true what the infomercial says, "You'll say WOW everytime."