Disposal Ethics

Our garbage disposal has been broken since this past weekend. I keep promising myself it has nothing to do with the shards of glass that went down there after Adam broke a pot top in the sink last week. I mean I stuck my hand down there and pulled out every last piece I could feel and after that? when I ran it? you could barely hear all the crackling and grinding and general breaking of the disposal, I swear.

Anyway the landlord promised someone would come check it out today and I kinda believe him given that he got over to the house last Saturday in about 3.67 minutes after we informed him that there was a foot of water in the basement and my cat's litter box was floating off toward the unexplored lands of Washer and Dryer. [No, the cat was not in the box, equipped with a small oar and sailor hat, meowing such as to make it sound as though he were calling "land ho! land ho!"....but wouldn't it have been funny if that had been the case?].

So today when I ran home for a late lunch I was dismayed to see that the garbage disposal fixer man had not yet visited us--largely because this meant I would be guilted into actually moving all the old dishes out of the sink that had been left there because hey! the water's not draining fast enough! guess I won't do any dishes at all! So I moved the dishes while heating up some lentil soup that I didn't really want but decided I should eat because it's cold outside and also soup is healthy [sort of] [when not eaten alongside a [delicious] toasted pita filled with cheese [two kinds]].

I knew I wasn't going to want all the soup so I poured some down the drain before I even put it in a bowl, and by the time I was about half way through eating it I realized I really didn't want the rest. I could've saved it, yes, but having recently thrown out about 139 Tupperware containers of lentil soup that Ray and I had accumulated in the fridge, I decided today was not the day to re-start my stockpile. So then what to do? The lentil soup was almost thick enough to warrant disposal in the garbage, but still soup nonetheless and hence it's logical resting place would be the disposal...or wherever food goes post disposal. goo! But do I really want to subject my disposal fixer to lentil soup? I mean with him not knowing what it is and all, that's gotta be one of the nastier things for him to stick his hands into, and I'm convinced that'll be his first plan of action upon arriving at our house [not sure why...maybe cause it would be mine]. Then again, I just changed the trash bag and I'm really not trying to have nasty soup sitting in the bottom of the trash for however long.

In the end I went with the trash. There was already lentil in the disposal so Mr. FixIt will have his fill I'm sure. And even though I'll bet he makes 14 times what I do to compensate for having to stick his hands in yucky gunk every day, I still want to make his experience at our place as pleasant as I can. But maybe that just means making him a cheese pita.