Garbarator

Kitchen sinks in Korea are big- a single sink the size of a double sink. And the drains are big too. They have a big drain with a deep basket in it that catches all the food bits. It's handy. You don't have to be so careful with the scraps when you are washing the dishes. I wash them into the drain, and then clear the basket into the garbage when I'm done.

This can also lead to problems though, or frustrations really. Both the size of the sink and the size of the drain can lead to frustration. Especially when my mother-in-law is around. She uses the sink as a prepping area when she is cooking, filling it with all sorts of food bits and dishes. And at the same time, she treats it as a garbage can, throwing all sorts of shit in it. I won't go into how this is both sick and inconvenient. Best to leave it there.

But it reminds me a bit of when I lived in Atlanta. I had a garbarator in my sink. A handy thing in the drain that you could grind up food scraps with. They would then go down the drain.

My mom came to visit once, and fell in love with the garbarator. I only used it for the odd scrap that washed off a plate. She used it for everything- all food scraps from cooking, all uneaten bits after the meal- one time I caught her taking celery out of the refrigerator and feeding it right into the garbarator.

When I got home from school one day, the garbarator wasn't working. My mom said it had 'just stopped'. I started digging stuff out of it, and among cereal, bread crusts, apples and other things, I found the bits of a broken coffee mug.

"What the hell is this?" I ask my mom.

"Couldn't find the dishwasher."

After poking around for a while, I found that there is a reset button on the bottom of the garbarator. Apparently it has some safety shut-off that goes off if something gives too much resistance. I cleaned out the bits of mug, pressed the button, and it was ready to go.

"Thank god!" say my mom, as she climbs up on the sink. "I don't think I could have held that much longer."

It's a bit of a sick story. But not the sickest thing I've seen. The basket in our sink gets dirty. You empty it all the time, but you have to clean it occasionally too. Grimy mess sticks to it and builds up. This is sick. What's more, mess builds up on the basket that the basket sits in. And you have to clean that occasionally too. Only it doesn't come out so easily, so you have to get your hand in there. Sick. But that's not all.

The drainage on our sink starts to slow down. I clean out the basket and the basket's basket, but it doesn't help- it still drains slowly. I consider using a drain snake, but the holes in the basket's basket seem a bit small. So I look under the sink, and see that instead of an elbow in the pipe for catching rings, there is a contraption that holds the drain basket's basket. It's deeper than the basket's basket and looks like it opens up.

I disconnect the overflow drain pipe from it, and a black sludge comes out. Apparently, we have to clean this out too.

I take the whole contraption off and try to open it. I can't get it open, but there are a lot of holes that I can get at it from. I start digging around the holes with a toothbrush, and draw out sludge. (Hint if you do this: you don't want to use your own toothbrush. Use your wife's.) This sludge is sick. It's the nastiest smelling thing I've ever had the fortune of smelling. And I am stuck cleaning it out of this basket for 10 minutes. I gag and cough when it comes out. I think I'm going to throw-up. Lucy and Eunjoo are watching, delighting in my discomfort, until the smell is too much and they run into the bedroom and shut the door.

But that's it, no story really. The sink drains well now. The next day when I woke up, I could taste that nasty sink smell. I guess I got some in my mouth. Or maybe Eunjoo switched toothbrushes on me.