Battle of the day

We love our new house. Let that be known from the start.

That being said, we all know when you buy a house you kinda get what you get when it comes to appliances and random quirks.
This new house has been a lesson in learning how to 'get' it.


There was the beautiful Electrolux micro-hood that spun your food beautifully. If you wanted it warm though, you were out of luck. We replaced that.
There's a hot tub in the back yard. It is not clean, or filled with water, nor would it get hot in any way if it were filled..... so we just treat it as deck decoration.
There's a riding lawnmower in the back yard. There are no keys, and I doubt all the functional parts are inside. But it's here.
We also have a sink with added water filter in the mud room off the garage. The same room that randomly houses our furnace. The sink is a great size, and the filtered water tastes nice. We just don't ever use it. EVER. In fact I'm not really sure why it is there.
The appliance I wish to discuss today, however, is the trash compactor.

Yes, I hear you asking. "Who has a trash compactor?"
The answer, now that we live in this lovely house, is US!

I don't know how to feel about said trash compactor. I mean, yes it is there, and yes we use it. It serves to make our trash more compact and it even provides a loud opera-like squealing sound when the trash gets squished.


My issue comes #1 from the kids who take pleasure in compacting the trash 400 kazillion times a day and #2 from the bags that hold the pre- and post- compacted trash (in theory making the trash easy to transport to the end of my driveway for pick-up)

#1- My kids enjoy the oh-so-enjoyable opera noise my compactor makes. They sing along. They squish the trash after every addition (think one fruit-snack wrapper or a single piece of ABC gum...unless it's Pencil, then it's more like a squish every 1/2 fruit snack wrapper)
Frequent squishing only becomes a problem when large amounts of trash get SO lodged into the small space that it becomes both permanently wedged into the minute nooks and crannies as to be immobile, it also comes to weigh approximately 6 tons.

And truly, #1 is only a problem because of #2.
Let me share exhibit A:

 Please note: the paper-lined-with-plastic bag actually in the compactor, and FULL of trash. (Including the Wii controller that was so chewed as to be short-circuiting with alleged sparks)
Please also note the plastic replacement bag on the floor near the compactor.

A few days ago I decided it was time to change the compactor bag. I grabbed the bag and pulled upward. The bag did not budge. Normally it is a fairly straight forward process, so I hunkered down and tried once more. A wiggle and a shimmy resulted in little more than a ripped bag. Then I straddled the dang thing (a feat in that tight corner there) and yanked and pulled and twisted and shredded that dang bag. It moved about 4 inched up, but there it stopped. (remember, please, trash STINKS!)

I yanked and tugged and pulled from every angle imaginable and achievable. After 20 minutes (no lie) I decided it was time to break out the new bags (that had to be better than this nightmare, right?) and move the nasty garbage to a more mobile container. Except, when I opened the new bags, I learned to my dismay, that they are scented.
Just to be clear:   Stinky trash + fake good smell that overpowers the senses (plural) = tragedy.

I did not puke. Though I tried.
I did cry.

The worst part was when I remembered the broken dinner glass and resorted to using the ruler (pictured on the counter) to scooping/prying the trash into the new bag in order to prevent cut fingers.

It took WAY too long to take the trash out. It was also significantly traumatizing.
When I finally returned from my trek to the garage, the empty compactor stared me down. I still had to figure out how to put the new kind of bags into the mechanized demon.

No wonder this is usually the Doctor's job.