Injured pride and garbage disposals.

Did you know garbage disposals are power tools? I know it sounds ridiculous to give the swirling blade at the bottom of your sink that spends its days mutilating leftovers such a prestigious title, but really, there is no other way to explain the episode that occurred in my kitchen last evening.

It all started with a little bit of good natured pumpkin carving. Sounds innocent enough, right? We carved, we laughed, and all was well. Then it was time to clean up.

"I don't think I'd put those big pieces of pumpkin down the garbage disposal," I said to my husband. Because I'm logical and smart like that. And I think working garbage disposals are much more user friendly then, you know, ones that don't work.

Josh tossed me a knowing look. He grunted, and maybe scratched himself a little bit, and then he dumped all the pumpkin remains into the sink... big pieces and all. With a macho shrug of his shoulders, he turned on the water and flipped the disposal switch.

Suddenly, it didn't matter if he was standing over the garbage disposal, or wielding a chainsaw in the front yard... he was a man, holding a power tool, and there was no stopping him.

Funny how that happens. I've witnessed it first hand on more than one occasion. I once watched Josh trim a few branches off our neighbors tree that had grown into the road and were dangerously obscuring the view of oncoming cars. I watched in horror as the tree grew thinner and thinner... he stopped only when I thrust myself in between the few remaining branches and the fiery rotating blade screaming "Mercy, Mercy!" at the top of my lungs. I swear that poor tree wouldn't have a single limb left if not for my drastic leap of faith...

Alright. Maybe I just suggested he stop. Repeatedly. While cowering behind his truck in hopes that his testosterone and gasoline fueled power tool lust wouldn't injure any harmless passersby.

Do you want to guess how long it took for the garbage disposal to stop working? I'm thinking less than twenty seconds. In a matter of moments, my sink was a swirling cesspool of pumpkiny filth. The motor of the disposal would turn, swishing the water around, but it wouldn't drain. Nice.

After a few grumbles and incoherent mumbles, Josh was on his back disassembling the pipes under the sink trying to unclog the disposal.

"Do you want me to google it?" I asked. Because everyone knows that Google can diagnose just about any household problem or illness ever known to man.

"No," he replied. "I'm not ready to relinquish control yet."

So the disassembling continued, and I immediately sat down at the computer to uh, check my email and google garbage disposals. (What? You know you would have done the same thing.)

I was quiet for a while. I mean, we were dealing with injured pride here, and I knew the best solution for that was for Josh to fix the disposal on his own. But really... the googled results were so simple. Plug up the other side of the sink, and use a plunger on your disposal. Over and over again, I read of people's experiences with this simple remedy. After a few more grunts and grumbles from the kitchen, I started reading, out loud. At first, it wasn't well received.

"It's already taken apart," he yelled. "I can't go back now."

"I worked for nine hours under the sink trying to fix it," I read. "Finally, I swallowed my pride and put everything back together. Who would have thought this simple solution would work!"

Heh. I was laughing on the inside. A few more shared success stories, and I heard him mumble, "Fine. I'm reassembling."

Wouldn't you know it? The plunger worked.

I used to think Tim Taylor of Home Improvement fame was overly dramatized... men don't really care about making things bigger, stronger, faster... pushing things to their maximum capacity, grunting and growling along the way.

Or...

Maybe they do.

(posted with permission from the dear husband who is oh so good natured and is really quite good at laughing at himself.)