Our garbage disposal was slowly dying, and when it got to the point where the motor would barely hum but not really turn, I finally put a note about it in with the rent. So, I knew that misuse, or overuse was a part of it, beside the fact that it was pretty old. We had had a problem with it a year or more ago, and it had been fixed, but this time it seemed dead.
So, the maintenance man came today and replaced it. He told us that we needed to use the disposal only "for emergency", not as a garbage. He found scrubber sponges in it and other whatnot. We didn't purposely put them in there.
My dad, on the other hand, has never owned a garbage disposal. This is not for lack of money. Also, with the building of the new house, I'm sure the contractor asked twice or three times if my parents were sure that they didn't want a garbage disposal. There are some old Philippine ways that my dad will never shake. This is one reason that I'm sure it would be difficult to get him to a psychiatrist and diagnosis his borderline personality disorder. So many of his behaviors and actions are chalked up to being the old Philippine way, or how he took after his traditional old Filipino parents. As if, that was all the explanation that was needed. Oh, when he beat us, he was just being a traditional Philippine parent, nothing to worry about. Although, when people start to see more of the picture, they realize that it's beyond normal Philippine tradition, and that maybe it isn't okay.
I guess I digress. I'm not saying that not having a garbage disposal is unrealistic. But having to wipe out every single crumb, morsel, grain of food from the sink every time one wants to run water is a pain in the ass. Surely, some of it can go down the drain. But my dad scrapes every last piece out of the sink and the strainer. And the rice is another thing. I think my parents would soak the rice cooker bowl. Then they would strain the old rice and incorporate it back into the new batch of rice. When we were staying with my dad last year my husband did most of the cooking. We would clean the kitchen as quickly and gently and thoroughly as possible, but it was never the correct way for my BPD father, of course. One time, my husband left the rice cooker bowl in the sink to soak, with soapy water. A few hours later, we saw the rice from the cooker laid out on a paper towel next to the sink. I really don't know if my dad intended to eat it, but I'm sure if we had told him it had soap on in, he would call us wasteful.
My dad is proud of the fact that he has amassed his fortune from unnecessary self-denial which of course affected the whole family. We weren't allowed to run the air conditioner at a bearable temperature - always a few degrees too warm. When the air conditioner broke, it was never fixed, and my parents would sit in the hot Florida house in summer sweating in front of fans. My mom would still have to stand over the stove to prepare every meal for my dad, or be accused of neglecting him.
Don't get me started with road trips and family vacations. Shift driving, napping at shady rest areas, occasionally checking into cheap seedy roach infested hotel rooms when my parents couldn't keep their eyes open for more longer than 8 seconds at a time. There would be one room for all five of us. We would still be eating poorly refrigerated corn on the cobb and corned beef sandwiches for several days in a row until they were all consumed. Even if we had reached our destiny, usually a relative's house, we would still eat our leftovers with whatever meal was cooked for us. That didn't differ from meals at home either. We barely ever threw food away. If my mom cooked a big pot roast or stew, we would primarily eat that for the first three or four days, then she would cook other things and integrate them into the meal, until the last day of the pot roast or stew - it would smell or taste tangy, but we would eat it. I think that sometimes my mom (who was a general practitioner) would fear for our health and discreetly dispose of something two weeks old, hoping my dad wouldn't find it in the trash.
So, after the maintenance man replaced the disposal, I was washing a pot that my husband had used for macaroni and cheese. It was a soaker. Maybe not a three day soaker like we let it go, but at least a two hour soaker at any rate. So, I scrubbed the pot out with the scrubber sponge since all the stainless steel scrubbers had apparently gone down the old disposal. The cheese sauce and macaroni came off easily and slid down the drain. I rinsed the pot, scrubbed the sink basin, and with the water still running, I turned on the disposal. As I listened to the sweet crunch of the new motor grinding up mac and cheese, I thought of my dad's spindly shakey fingers combing the drain of his new kitchen sink for debris.
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