Whoops

Here’s a riddle for you…what sound do you get when you cross an active garbage disposal with a shot glass?

The sound you get…and I quote, is “Whir…whir…clink…clink…CRUNCH….” followed by silence.

Yes, folks…I was minding my own business and washing dishes. The sink was starting to get a little clogged so I flipped the switch to the disposal and that was the sound that arose from the mysterious depths of my sink. Though I am not overly familiar with garbage disposals and how they work, I am at least knowledgeable enough to know that they don’t normally make that sound. Frowning, I turned off the switch and turned to Chris, who was also in the kitchen.

I think we both said, “Uh oh” simultaneously, but I can’t be absolutely sure.

After making sure that the switch was in the “off” position, Chris gingerly reached his hand down into the disposal (are you cringing yet…? I know I was!) to find whatever item had begun the wild rumpus. While he was doing this, I was sitting in the corner with my hands over my eyes, absolutely certain that in some freak twist of fate, that the disposal would turn itself back on and munch on Chris’s hand.

I looked up in time to see him pull out a chunk of glass. I was baffled, because I’d already washed the two glasses that were in the sink. I wondered whether one of our smaller table glasses had somehow mysteriously bent the laws of physics enough to fit down the disposal inlet. After grabbing one and twisting and turning it, I was able to conclude that it probably wasn’t one of our small glasses.

To make a long story short, in a very tense and terse 30 minutes that involved a lot of glaring, grunting, and “ewwww” noises, Chris unscrewed the disposal apparatus and began to pull out pieces of glass with a pair of pliers (his hands were too big…and let’s face it; I was NOT going to put my hands down that thing!) to ascertain that one of his shot glasses had fallen into the disposal. Oops.

By the way, I can’t stress enough just how disgusting the innards of a disposal are, for those of you that are unaware. I deal with deceased people, a myriad of unpleasant smells, and parts of people every day so you’d think that nothing would faze me. Clearly, this is not the case because I nearly vomited when I saw the disposal. I’m not sure whether it’s a testament to the grossness of the disposal or to just how immune I have become to my job, but I can honestly say that I would much rather perform an autopsy than clean the disposal ever again. And I wasn’t even the one with my hand in there. *shudders*

Anyway, I wish I could say our problems were solved by Chris and his magic pliers, but alas! It appears that the garbage disposal is, for the time, rather unusable. Chris wants to tackle it again tomorrow. I want to call a plumber. Mars and Venus are going to go head-to- head over a garbage disposal.

Somehow, I think I’ll win.