3 Things that Disturb Me

#1 WARM WATER IN THE DISPOSAL

There has been a long standing dispute in our household. Should you use warm water or cold water when running the disposal?

I don’t see how there can be any question. Of course it’s COLD WATER! Doesn’t everybody know this? Everybody accept my husband. Karl obstinately holds on to some flimsy theory presupposing that scraping dishes in warm water should lead to running the disposal in warm water. What? I’m disturbed.

Cold water in the disposal is not a suggestion for me – it’s one of my bedrock principles – a code by which I live.

A very credible source (our family plumber who looks like he’s been in the business for 125 years) passed this little domestic nugget on to my mother, who wove it into the very fabric of my upbringing.

I have been proudly and rather successfully running cold water in the disposal for four Presidential administrations. I cannot be persuaded otherwise. Something about the motor not overheating – need any explanation be necessary?

The triumph of my summer was when our apartment plumber backed my position – with what I thought to be a rock solid thesis on warm water making the grease slip down the drain easier.

So now…Karl always shouts (no matter what room I happen to be in when he’s running the disposal) “Cold Water!”

It gives me such deep satisfaction to know that no matter what may be wrong with the world – cold water is running in my disposal.


#2 THOSE PEOPLE:
We were next in line for the ride at Fun Plex, when the people behind us realized that the rollercoaster car held 4 people. There were only two of us in my party, and I could hear the other family grumble, “Well, 2 of us are going to have to go with ‘those people’.”

Those people? THOSE PEOPLE? How could they be confused? I’m not “those people.” They are the THOSE PEOPLE.


#3 CHILDREN WHO SPEAK IN CHECKOUT COUNTERS:
The other day I’m standing in the check-line at Target. Jensen turns to the cashier and says “Does everybody have a bottom?”

I look at her – look at the “nice lady” – and say confidently, “Yes, everybody has a bottom.” Well, they do, I figure. No one can dispute that. Not even the cashier will fault me for admitting to this.

So then she says, not too quietly, “Did God make everybody’s bottom?” Now the cashier looks unsure…a bit bewildered. This is getting to be a lot of “bottom talk.”

“Yes, Jensen – God made everybody’s bottom.”

I can only hope the flustered Target team member appreciates my willingness to clear this up and does not assume our family has some sort of bottom fetish.