Something Lite: The Insinkerator and the Popsicle Stick

This is a story in the life of my family.  Our garbage disposal stopped working about a week ago.  Not all at once, but over a couple of minutes.  I was running it and heard an interesting noise coming from the inside of the sink.  It sounded like the sound me having to spend money to repair something.  Then it went silent.  I flipped the switch a couple of times and nothing happened.  "Oh great,"  I thought.  "Something else to fix."   I decided to not touch it for a couple of days and pray that it would just decide to work later.  Two days later, my wife Stacey decides she really likes the concept of a working garbage disposal in the house.  So she tells me to call our home warranty company.  You know who they are don't you?  They are the people that charge you $60 per visit just to tell you that you should pour vinegar down the pipe. 

Well, I didn't want to spend $60 dollars.  So I did the one thing that threatens the peace of any family home.  I pulled out the toolbox.  And Stacey left the room.  I have to tell you that I currently have a thirty minute rule when it comes to figuring out how things work around the house.  If I can't completely figure out how to fix something within thirty minutes, I call someone who can.  The thirty minute rule is a direct result of my trying to replace the door frame in the pantry by myself.  Let's just say that the two months that we didn't have a door in place was not a good time for me and my man ego.  But I won't tell you that story yet. 

So after spending some time messing with the wrong end of the garbage disposal, I went to one of my favorite sites in the world. It's called http://www.howstuffworks.com/. If you ever have to figure out something, go to this site. At the very least, it will point you in the right direction. The first thing that I discovered there was that there is a cut-off mechanism on garbage disposals that recognizes when the disposal is clogged up with an item that it cannot not easily cut. In this case, the item was a wooden popsicle stick that a certain six year old threw into the sink (he's helping).  This keeps your garbage disposal from burning out the motor (very smart). There is also a reset button that allows the disposal to run again. That is found under the bottom of the garbage disposal. I did not notice this button before because I can honestly say that I have never looked under the bottom of the disposal before.  And then there is a hole in the bottom of the disposal. This hole is where the garbage disposal wrench goes. And what is a garbage disposal wrench? I'm glad you asked that question! It is this thing:

The InSinkErator WRN-00 JamBuster Wrenchette is basically an allen wrench with an extra bend in it.  It is larger than your standard allen wrench because the people that make the garbage disposal have to have another way to make money off of you.  So they created this "special tool" with the name etched on the handle that you can only get from Home Depot for $6.75.  So it's 9:30 pm on a Thursday night and I'm on my way to get the tool that I have never heard of so that I won't kill my son for throwing his popsicle sticks in the garbage disposal and won't have to sedate my wife because there are pipes on the floor because I had to take apart the pipes to take the garbage disposal out but I didn't really need to take the garbage disposal out and I hope I didn't mess something up and I have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to go to work and she's starting to get nervous because she doesn't want me to break anything else and I know this is a run-on sentence but you get my point and what is that string of black gunk that I just pulled out of the pipe and is Home Depot still open? 

So I go to Home Depot and they have the InSinkErator JamBuster Wrenchette in stock.  Yes!  I look at it and say to myself, "I can't believe that I have to pay seven bucks for a allen wrench with a handle on it.  But I do.  And as I am driving home, I'm hoping that this stupid thing will allow me to go to bed without tearing up the foundation of the house.  Because I will if I have to.  Thankfully, the wrenchette worked.  Two quick twists, and the disposal was HEALED!!  THE CRISIS IS OVER!!

And then we went to sleep.

Peace and Love

 
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Misc and Other Blog: But I'm Not Sleepy

I started a second blog a while back called "Miscellaneous and Other".  I did about four postings on it before I decided that I didn't feel like investing time in two completely different blogs.  Here is one of my favorites posts from that blog:

But I'm Not Sleepy

There is no such thing as sleeping late when you have a child. For those of you without children, you have no idea what it’s like to wake up to the sound of the toilet flushing at 6 am, bathroom light shining in your face. And the first thing you think when your five year old son climbs into bed with you is NOT how much you love them. The first thing you think is “Did he wash his hands?”. That’s because the hand in question is currently caressing your face and you know that you did not hear any sink water running after the flush. So you ask, “Is that the pee-pee hand?” “No”, your angel answers. “Are you sure?” “No”. You have just been awakened by the joy of your life. Now those of you with pets might think you go through the same thing with your “babies”. But I beg to differ. You can tell your animal to go away, and it might look at you as though it does not understand. If you tell your child to go away, your child will usually look at you and say, “But, I’m not sleepy.” Once your child utters these magical words to you, your sleeping time is over.

This is my morning: I set my alarm to go off at 7am. This means that I really want to get up at about 7:15 or 7:22. My son usually wakes up around 6 am and goes to the bathroom. I know that he is in the bathroom because I hear the toilet seat as he slams it while raising it up. I am also aware of the fact that he did not close the door while going to the bathroom because the light is shining in my face. I hear the sound of him “doing his business” and an alarming thought comes rushing to my sleepy, half-awake brain. “ Dear God, please don’t let him miss,”. After he is done, I hear the slam of the toilet seat as he lets it clank back down. At this point, there is a fifty-fifty chance that he is going to wash his hands. I listen to hear the sound of running water. If he does not wash his hands, then you have to go through the aforementioned pee-pee hand interrogation. If he does wash his hands, then you will probably get the wet fingers of affection. That’s because he probably didn’t dry his hands completely after washing them. Either way, you are going to get something because he is going to climb into bed with you. Now my son takes after me. What that means is that it is impossible(and I do mean no chance in the free world), for him to get comfortable while lying down for at least the first 10 minutes. Remember that it is still only 6:04 in the morning. So he climbs in and begins his quest of manafest destiny by scooting me over with his butt. “Hey you,” I say, “Why don’t you go get in your own bed?”. Sometimes he protests. Sometimes he does not. This time he does not. So he goes out of the room leaving the door to my bedroom wide open.

I don’t know what it is about the door being open, but when I am serious about sleeping, I want it closed. So I ask as politely as I can, “Close the door!”. Please don’t judge me. I’m sleepy. So he comes back and shuts the door. Fifteen or twenty minutes later he comes back in and climbs in on my wife’s side of the bed. He does that because he figures that she won’t send him back out like the evil man that she married just did. But my wife is wanting to sleep until the sun actually rises as well so she gently kisses him on the cheek and sends him back to bed also. The time is now 6:35am. Ten minutes later he comes back in and says, “Daddy? I’m hungry,”. My wife replys that breakfast will not be served until 8am. My son answers, “But I’m hungry now.”. At this point your parental mind tells you that you should not have taught your child to fight for what he believes in. So my wife and I begin the ritual of determining who has done the most work for the sake of the family in the last twenty-four hours. The loser has to get up and make our son breakfast. The winner gets another ten minutes of sleep. Dang it! Lost again.

Something Lite!

I placed this video on my facebook page and asked if the Pastor should have killed the kid or hugged the kid. Either way, it's pretty funny.








10/08/09 UPDATE TO POST: Please be advised that I do NOT condone the killing of young children:), but you have to admit that the Pastor looks a "tad annoyed".

Peace and Love (but no murders),

Rev. Mike


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Something Lite

Q: What type of illness do Ministers Get?

A: Whooping Cough!

Something Lite!

I was telling my three boys the story of the Nativity and how the Wise Men brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the infant Jesus.
Clearly giving it a lot of thought, my six-year-old observed, "Mom, a Wise Woman would have brought diapers."

Taken from readersdigest.com. joke by Angie Flaute

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Something Lite!

Here's a joke. I got this one from the Reader's Digest website: It comes from Sherri Leard:

As my five-year-old son and I were heading to McDonald's one day, we passed a car accident. Usually when we see something terrible like that, we say a prayer for whoever might be hurt, so I pointed and said to my son, "We should pray."

From the back seat I heard his earnest voice: "Dear God, please don't let any of those cars block the entrance to McDonald's."

Peace and Love,

Rev Mike

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