Ah, the joys of home ownership. This Memorial Day weekend we got to experience it first hand. For some reason right after re-financing our mortgage, life seems a little more permanent and the weekend activities revolved around this new state of being.
Saturday started out to be a nice day. Right after breakfast I dumped some old strawberries in the garbage disposal, flicked the switch, and all that came back was a low frequency “brrrrrrrrr”. No satisfying whirring of blades and gnashing of metal at high speeds. I thought, “How can this thing be jammed? A couple of mushy strawberries?”. So of course I rush to Google and sure enough the first hit tells one to use a hex wrench to turn the motor back and forth and hit the red reset button. I proceeded to do as the oracle instructed, (amazingly there was a hex wrench slot AND a red reset button). The motor turned very easily and the red-reset button didn’t have a satisfying click or anything. So I try again, and get the same low frequency, menacing, I’m gonna burn your house down “BRRRRRRRRR”.
So at this point I am resigned to the fact that I have to replace the garbage disposal. How hard can this be after all, it’s just a 3/4HP electric motor that whirs around sharp metal objects while connected to a water source. I’m sure I won’t get electrocuted. THEN as we are piling into the Subaru to get a spanking new disposal, another one of the fuzzy worms from hell, aka tent-caterpillar, drops off our cherry tree onto the front porch. So now I have two missions: 1. Kill the worms from hell that are slowly devouring our beautiful cherry tree and 2. Replace a device that could very easily end my life if installed incorrectly.
At Lowe’s we were able to purchase a really neat extending pole thing that you can place all kinds of “plug-in” type tools onto. Fruit pickers, shears, rakes, you name it. We of course bought the shears. We also got this neat 3/4HP In-Sinkerator (don’t you just love that name) garbage disposal.
OH, OH and on the way out of Lowe’s we happened to run into a HORRIBLE traffic jam IN the Lowe’s parking lot. They had just opened a new Krispy Kreme doughnut shop on the south-east side of the Lowe’s Parking lot and nearly everyone in North Seattle was there to partake in the artery hardening glory that is Krispy Kreme. (Of course growing up in the south we kinda took these places for granted, you’d go there late at night after a long study session during Finals Week at Georgia Tech). We pulled up and a fairly stressed police officer directed us to park and walk in. We waited in line for about 30 mins, but got a free doughnut for the effort and walked out with a dozen more. Oh and if you microwave them for about 10sec at 30% power it’s just like getting them off the production line when the “Hot Now” sign is lit.
By the time we made it back to the hell-mouth that is our cherry tree, a fairly impressive storm had moved through, the temperature had dropped by about 15 degrees and all the little beasties had crawled back in there nests. What better time to try out the new, whiz-bang pole axe. The comedy the ensued was unfortunately not caught on tape, but it would have made a great entry for, “America’s Funniest Videos” as I would snip a nest and then run out of the way as hordes of caterpillars would come crashing to the ground. Of course I had Karen pick them up and put them in the trash bag. (It wasn’t until today that we read that they ARE actually poisonous).
We managed to clip all of the nest out of the tree save one, I hope that those guys aren’t able to reproduce in the caterpillar stage (I’m pretty sure they have to turn into moths first). Hopefully the tree won’t get some disease from all the branches we pruned off it. Feeling confident about winning the war, I then proceeded to install the garbage disposal.
So I unpack the new one, (It’s faux stainless steel — shiny silver plastic, but the box implies stainless steel? Maybe the blades are stainless?) and realize this will be easier than first thought. The old disposal has the exact same mounting system, so I don’t have to do any real plumbing, or at least so I though. As I got ready to hook everything up, I realized they sent a “curved” drain, not a straight one. So the law of going back to the hardware store no matter how carefully you plan applied here. I went back and found all kinds of plastic pipes, some were small and tapered large, some had threads, some even had accordion like capabilities. I finally decided on a “disposal kit” because it came with a bunch of plastic pipes, one of which was sure to fit. I am glad I got it too, because the pipe I was originally going to purchase would not have worked.
Eventually I got the new electrical cord installed, cut the pipes to length, installed all the gaskets and with some elbow grease got the new one installed in the old bracket. I tightened all the plumbing, plugged it in, ran a whole sink’s work of water down the drain and flicked the switch. “Guuuurggglle, Griiiinnnddd, Whirrrrrrrr”.
