Adaptive disposing

I have a special talent for clogging garbage disposals. I have struck terror into the hearts of at least 4 of them, and each time has been a learning experience.

Back in the 90s, I remember my mom and I had some terrible luck with our disposal. It was especially troubled by things like parsley. Ok. We now know to just throw out parsley stems. In 2002, I clogged Jed's disposal (see, not even ex-boyfriends are safe!). This time it was uncooked pie crust trimmings. (I was making an apple pie.) Ok, yeah, I can see how that would trouble a disposal. Now that gets chucked into the trash can too, unless Jenny's around, in which case we dispose of it in the old fashioned way.

Then, last Thanksgiving, apple pie struck again. That time it was the apple skins (albeit quite a lot of them, from 6-8 apples) mucking up Jenny's garbage disposal. And just last night, my curse came through with potato peel pyrotechnics. Really, they erupted out of the sink, splattering all over me! I was even following correct disposal procedure, pushing the skins down gradually as it was running, with a constant stream of cool water. Harumph.

I just walked over to the complex office; hopefully maintenance will come fix it today. I'm loving having maintenance! There's definitely something to be said for professional landlords and industrial apartments. I like to chat up the staff when I'm in there. You know, establish a friendly relationship. So today I focused my conversation on setting some ground rules with my disposal. I asked if they tend to be finicky. (Obviously they tend to be finicky, the skin of 3 potatoes isn't an unreasonable burden.) They tend to be finicky. Then I received a light lecture about how big of a "no-no" potato peels are. Ok... I was told that you shouldn't put anything down the disposal that isn't likely to melt in there. Um, I have much better ways of disposing of ice cream, thank you very much. She added that garbage disposals aren't meant to dispose of your garbage (now WHERE would I have gotten that idea?!), but rather just in case you happen to get anything down the sink that shouldn't be there. I've been blind for so many years! Whatever.

I think that the over-arching problem is that I'm used to robust garbage disposals. I'm used to garbage disposals that actually are garbage disposals, not just-in-case-hatches. So now I need to decide how to treat my disposal. Should I follow the sissy prescriptions of the main office? Or should I continue to garbage dispose, but with many increments of small batches? I guess I'll probably take a hybrid approach, using my best judgement (tempered by past experience). Parsley and pie crust get a red light, perhaps a yellow light for the skins of things, and a green light for things that just happen to fall in there, things like silverware.