I suppose a good case could be made for the occasional side dish of Brussels sprouts cooked by a chef in a restaurant. You know, the kind of Brussels sprouts that are large, fully formed and roasted whole or cut in half.
Those are not the kind that I hate. I despise the Brussels sprouts that my husband joyfully grows in our backyard garden. Those would be the tiny, underdeveloped, worm-ridden ones that stink up the kitchen. So, recently, when my husband was away, I thought it would be the perfect time to clean out the refrigerator. I opened two plastic containers of Brussels sprouts that had been in there for—well, as long as I could remember. It’s not as if I begin preparing dinner each night thinking, gee, I really feel like eating wormy Brussels sprouts. It’s more like, I guess I could stand some B. S. tonight if I douse them with butter and maple syrup.
When I opened the containers of B. S., I could tell that they needed to go and go quickly. I threw the contents of the first container in the trash. Then I worried that it would stink up the garage because we would both be out of town for the week. So I decided to empty the second container into the garbage disposal—a quick goodbye. However, this is always risky because our garbage disposal is rather finicky and doesn’t like vegetables all that much. The first few B. S. flew down the disposal, but then the rest turned to a watery green puree and came right back up.
No problem. I could hear the water trickling down. I would wait it out. I turned on the dishwasher and went upstairs.
When I came back down, the sink had backed up even more and was almost overflowing with smelly green water. How is this possible? I wasn’t putting more water in! I figured that it had something to do with the dishwasher and the sink. I ran for the plunger and started plunging away, but only succeeded in splashing stinky rotten B. S. water on myself, the counter, the floor, and the cupboards. Using rubber gloves I tried to pull out any debris that might still be in the disposal, but only leaked the putrid water into the rubber gloves. When I tried to run the disposal, it spewed the slime in a geyser, but the water did not go down.
I started doing Limoncello shots while making a mental list of people whom I might call for help.
My next idea was to bail out the smelly water in the left sink into the right sink, spreading the joy around. After that, I again tried the plunging while running the garbage disposal technique, and on the seventeenth try, it worked. Yea! Now all that was left to do was to wipe down the entire kitchen with Pine Sol, light a scented candle, change my clothes, and have another Limoncello shot.
Man, I hate Brussels sprouts.
3 comments:
Ha, ha, ha...I have a great mental picture of this! You are too much!
This blog entry made my day - Thank you!!! I've passed it on to some friends who will enjoy it as well. It brings back memories of the time we accidently unplugged the freezer (why that happened is another story), left for a 5-day backpacking trip during the hottest week of July, returned home to find blueberry juice oozing out of the freezer door onto the floor. But the blueberries still seemed fine so I made blueberry jam, which boiled over on the stove. And then, the jam didn't set!!
Well, I'm glad you enjoyed the B. S. post. At the time I was feeling somewhat paranoid. It was as if the Brussels sprouts were punishing me for wasting food by never going away! Afterwards, I saw the humor in the situation and immediately sat down and wrote about it. Thank you for your comments. Regarding the blueberry debacle, some days we are definitely at odds with the universe and shouldn't even try to do things.
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