I tried to shove too many potato peels down the garbage disposal yesterday and the sink got backed up. I kept running the disposal, and jamming things down into the sink, but the grey water kept rising. As Linette was around, I decided not to try the plunger that we keep behind the toilet in the bathroom. (She’s pretty strict when it comes to exposing her, the baby, and any houseguests we might have to e-coli.) So, I walked across town to the hardware store and bought a new one. The only one they had was a very large one with bright yellow handle though, and I was mortified at the thought of carrying it all the way back home… I don’t like drawing attention to myself in the first place, but the thought of announcing to the world, “Hey, I just deposited something so unbelievably large in the toilet that I had to run out and buy a plunger,” sent my OCD into overdrive. As I walked toward the door of the hardware store with this bright yellow “I just passed something the size of a grapefruit” beacon in my hand, I thought through my options. As it didn’t seem possible to stop and tell everyone that I encountered that it was for the potato peels in my kitchen sink, I decided to shove the whole thing up my coat sleeve… So, if you’ve heard any rumors about a nervous-looking plunger-handed man roaming the streets of Ypsi, don’t worry, it was just me… (The good news is, I have my next Halloween costume all ready.)
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Thanks for the laugh, Plunger Hand.
I think it is time for some vigilante justice. You can use your bathroom plunger and go around your neighborhood giving the pimps and hookers a raging case of e coli with a swift plunge to the face.
You and “Eyes Without a Face” hang out during the walk back?
OK, homeowner. You have now learned never garbage dispose of potato peels (of more than one potato). Because, well you know why because. And, my moms sent me this key thingy that goes under the disposal and you just slightly turn it counter clockwise and it unjams the gd gd. On three different occasions I paid some guy sweating nicotine and beer $100 bucks a pop to do the same (it was three different guys). Now that I know how easy it was I feel like such dumbass yuppie liberal. So do you have one of those key thingys? I think it will even say on it “key thingy”.
I don’t own a home, but I dislike being visited by apartment maintenance enough to know that most disposals have a little side button on the back or side that you press while it’s trying to run, and that often fixes the problem. Alternately, when the unit is OFF you can try moving the blades around with a broom handle (or plunger handle) to loosen them up.
Lettuce is bad in disposals as well, btw. The worst thing I ever got one stuck with was a bit of gravel from a fish tank (at which point maintenance was called, and they used the broomstick method above).
anyhoo, you would think the guy at the hardware store would know the stigma he was causing you in not offering a plain brown wrapper for you to take it home in.
The worst thing I’ve ever have jam up my disposal is when my daughter, unbeknownst to me, dropped a dime down the sink.
Couldn’t you have unscrewed the rubber plunge bit from the wood handle and then stuck it in your coat pocket?
another option would have been to run full speed with the plunger in hand, constantly looking over your shoulder.
Witnesses would have been forced to assume you’d just committed an inexplicably illegal act of plunging.
This is off-topic, but is anyone else here getting a sudden urge to play poker?
Brett, you are such a
Joker!
Joker!
Joker!
No, but I do have this urge to purchase Dish TV. Go figure.
I just deleted all the spam, so no one will know what you’re talking about… That’s not why I did it though… I didn’t remove all the poker links just so that your jokes wouldn’t work. It’s true that I’m insecure, and threatened by your jokes, but that’s not why I did it.
Speaking of spam, could one of you who doesn’t have a job figure out a way to spam other sites with links to MM.com? I’ll give you five bucks if you can bring in another thousand people in a 24 hour period.
Mark, I think that would be karmicly disasterous. I spammed your inbox with an alternate plan.