You may recall that when I prepare supper for Farmer H, I do just about everything short of chewing the food for him. I also know that he will find a way to make a mess for me, even though I leave very little opportunity. I'm used to it.
Sunday night, Farmer H had eaten up all of his Chinese food that we got Friday night. So he was having chimichangas, the frozen version. I put them on a foil-lined pan to bake, along with some of the crispy potato coin thingies that are like tater tots. No, they don't really go together. But that's what Farmer H wanted. He turned down a salad (again, not really something that goes with chimichangas) and tortilla chips.
I asked if he wanted the usual cheesy salsa dip for his chimichangas, and he said no. I asked if he wanted cheese on top. Yes. The choice was some shredded cheddar, or a slice of pepper jack. He wanted the shredded cheddar. I sprinkled it on top and put the finished chimichangas back in the oven for it to melt. I knew it would run onto the pan. I figured it would become like a "cheese skirt" that I've seen on the cooking shows. A flat portion of melted cheese that drapes over the sides of a cheeseburger. Customers supposedly go crazy for the cheese skirt.
When Farmer H came to get his food, I had already put some ketchup in a ramekin for him, and twice as much salsa in a bigger container, like a giant ramekin. Farmer H would just dump these on his plate all willy-nilly. It's a paper plate, so no work for me, but I don't like seeing stuff all running together. He can at least be partially civilized.
Farmer H got his potato coins off the pan. Then started wrestling with the cheese-draped chimichangas. I had told him to do them last, and that had given the cheese a little time to solidify. They actually came off just right, with only a little left behind, which Farmer H scooped off the foil with his fork. Successfully!
Farmer H was happy with his meal. I was happy that there was not a mess. I set about scratching my lottery tickets. When he was finished, Farmer H returned his plate to the kitchen. He threw the paper plate away, and started rinsing the ramekins. RED FLAG! This never ends well!
"I hope you wiped that out! Don't be washing chunks of salsa down my sink! I have to pick them out of the drain with the end of a knife!"
"There ain't no chunks!" proclaimed Farmer H, while filling the larger container with water, and sloshing it along the sides of the sink. Twice.
"Then why are you doing that? Why are you rinsing the sides of the sink if there are no chunks?"
"I'm just rinsing out the containers, HM." He set them in the sink.
"If they're rinsed out, why are you setting them in the sink?"
"Because that's what you tell me to do!"
"No. That's when you wait a while to bring them back to the kitchen, and they have sauce stuck to the sides, and they need to soak. If you just rinsed them out, they don't need to sit in the sink. Put them on the counter with the silverware."
Of course you know what happened. Later, when I went to rinse off my plate (having wiped the rice particles off with a paper towel into the wastebasket (so as not to clog up my own sink that has no garbage disposal), I noticed that the water was draining slowly. I took out the strainer plug. [Pardon the condition of my sink. It DOES need a good scrubbing, but it's 27 years old. Even when it's clean, it's not sparkling.]
Of course there were chunks from the salsa blocking my drain! They had gone through this strainer, and were stuck underneath. I didn't take a picture of them in place, because I didn't have my phone in my pocket. It was over on the table, not worth walking around the counter when I had a more pressing job to do.
I used the point of a paring knife to pick peppers out of my drain. When I was closing down HIPPIE for the night, I took my phone over to get the photos. I saved the evidence on the plate I'd used to cut up a lemon for my Zero Sugar Shasta Cola:
My intention was to point out the evidence to Farmer H the next morning. To show that I KNEW what he was doing, and yet he deliberately lied to me about it. AND had continued rinsing these peppers into the drain at the time I was telling him not to. However, the evidence shriveled up overnight, so I didn't bother.
Here are the holes in the drain where stuff like this gets stuck:
It's not a pleasant task to pick out particles with a knife tip. Farmer H tries to get away with this all the time, whether it's little chunks of mushroom and hamburger from spaghetti, or diced onions and beans from baked beans. Any little pieces that are left on his plate or bowl, he thinks he can run down the sink. He CAN'T!
There's no need to LIE about not-rinsing chunks of salsa down the drain, when he's IN THE MIDDLE OF RINSING CHUNKS OF SALSA DOWN THE DRAIN! That's the worst part. He could have stopped, and wiped them out of the sink when I called him on it.
I'm getting crankyier in my old age. Farmer H should be able to take 10 seconds to wipe off his plates/utensils, rather than making me dig his garbage out of the drain.
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