There’s Something Under There?
This morning, Shane was dumping his leftover cereal and milk down the sink. At 14 years old, he finally knows to run the garbage disposal when there are large chunks floating around.
He ran the disposal for half a second. The large chunks went down the drain and, most likely (although we couldn’t see them), sat in the sink where they would rot all day until someone else ran the garbage disposal.
“Try running it a little longer,” I said.
He turned it on again, for two seconds. “Like that?” he said.
“Much better,” I said.
Then I realized that he wouldn’t learn “why” unless I explained the reasoning behind running it longer. I said that the big chunks would be stuck if they didn’t get sufficiently broken up and pushed through the pipes.
“Look, I’ll show you,” I said, opening the cabinet to show him what was under the sink.
“There’s something under there?” he asked, genuinely surprised but not terribly interested.
“Yes, there’s something under there,” I said.
I knew Shane wasn’t joking around, not knowing what was under the sink. I didn’t know there were pipes under there until well into my marriage, when my husband got under there to fix something.
I remember being genuinely surprised at the size of the contraption that was our garbage disposal. I remember being curious about where the pipes led. I remember questioning the entire sewage and water department, and I still wonder how those cereal chunks don’t end up in our drinking water.
But I was decades older than Shane when I learned about those pipes.
I’m the type of person who likes to learn only if I must learn. I could go the rest of my life without understanding anything new, and be perfectly content.
It never occurred to me that there was anything odd about this way of life, until I met my husband. While I spent my childhood walking around in awe, staring but not really caring, he was taking apart everything he could find, whether or not he could get it back together. He wanted to see what made it go.
But I still remember when I was admiring someone’s car one day, watching the water beads run down across the hood, sparkling in the sunlight. I thought it was just spectacular – those little droplets of water carrying so many colors.
“Do you know why that happens?” the car owner asked me.
I was in my mid-twenties at the time. “No,” I said. “I don’t know why it happens, and I don’t really care. I just know it’s beautiful.”
I think Shane has the preferential ignorance gene, too.