I decided that since tomorrow I have three classes that span from 11am to 6:30pm, I would get everything together for some beef stew and let that cook in the crock pot all day. My plan was to get all the veggies/potatoes chopped and let them sit together in the fridge overnight (as per Tomm's advice) and in the morning I'd brown the beef, toss it in the crockpot along with the broth, and begin the slow cooking process. I have determined this to be a great plan and I figure it'll go nice and smoothly.

Alas, a semi-major problem arises within the first step. I peeled all the potatoes I needed and I let the peels fall into the sink. One of the things I'm happy about this apartment is the fact it has a garbage disposer in the sink. So I turn the water on, turn on the disposer and start pushing down the potato peelings. There are peelings for about 4 or 5 potatoes in the sink (not all were large potatoes though), so there's a decent amount to push down. Its going well until all of a sudden the water stops draining...

I turn the disposer on and off, even leave it on for a bit, but the water is not draining at all. I realize the disposer was ok, but the pieces it cut the potato peelings into must have clogged the drain after the disposer. Crap. In my mind I'm thinking I've been here under two weeks and I'm going to be forced to call the maintenance guys. I start looking around for anything to remedy the situation. I briefly tried using a spoon to scoop anything out of actual disposer. This really did nothing and was more of a panic move.

I don't have a plunger, but I did realize the water stopper for that side of the sink is made out of rubber. I start using that to plunge that drain. Every couple of plunges the water goes down a bit at a time. I plunge a bit more fiercely and all of a sudden the water drains right out. I had successfully plunged my kitchen drain with the rubber stopper. I ran plenty of water through to ensure the potato fragments were completely gone. I was pumped, that was a perfect solution to a stupid problem.

When conveying this story to Tomm, he called me the "MacGyver of Household Manliness." I'll think that title describes this evening quite well.