lessons learned from cleaning out the pantry

We have been on a cleaning binge the past 4 days or so. We had a mini remodel in 2 bathrooms and so while everything was a mess we decided to take it a step further. We have a closet across the end of our den that is 6'X24'. It is really big so it can hold a lot of junk! It had gotten so bad that we couldn't get in it any longer so what else could we do. Even we were appalled at the amount of stuff that came out of there. We divided it into the appropriate groups and now we even have empty shelves.

Next it was on to the kitchen. I cleaned out the pantries, all of the cabinets and drawers and I got a lot of junk out of there too. There were packs of Jell-O that were 3 years past their expiration date and all sorts of partly used packs of seasonings and a bunch of opened crackers, cereals and pasta. There was a particularly interesting bottle of old rice. It was some sort of special red rice that I thought deserved to be poured down the disposal. It all went down with no problem. Next it was on to the coffee cabinet which had at least 6 partially used bags of assorted coffees One was a very old can of Folgers decaf which I thought needed to be poured down the disposal so that I could put old knives in it. Half way through the decaf things stopped working. Tony was working on hanging mirrors in the bathrooms and I really hated to tell him that the sink was stopped up. He was perturbed when I told him about the coffee. (You might guess that this is not the first time I put something that I shouldn't have in the disposal.) But then I had to fess up to the red rice. You know what happens to rice when it gets wet? Well, it expands. The rice had swollen and totally blocked both sides of the sink. He had to use a knife like an ice pick to get it out. As soon as he got the rice out of all of the nooks and crannies the coffee water started pouring out. It was totally gross. Of course, I got photos.

The bin was about 3"-4" deep in rice, water and coffee.

The moral of the story is, don't put uncooked rice down the disposal.