Replacing Kitchen Disposal

This weekend I went to the big box hardware store and bought a replacement garbage disposal. What a great invention. What else can take 10 lbs. of food waste and turn it into rat food so quickly? I'm not incredibly handy but can tackle some simple around the house jobs and I thought changing the disposal couldn't be too bad. I was told that the various fittings were pretty standard - I expected that I would just disconnect the old one - then connect the new one and voila (or as some say wallah)! I should have remembered that plumbing tasks just never work for me. First of all, the housing of the old unit was bigger in diameter than then new unit so the old pipes didn't reach. This just meant another trip to the hardware store. I found Ralph, who was very helpful, at our hardware store and he got me what I needed. I used my hacksaw to shorten one pipe, used my one or two replacement components and got everything hooked back together. I ran the water in the sink - no leaks. I switched on the grinder and it purred. Everything was fine - or so I thought. Only problem was - I omitted reading the instructions. Later the next evening I was working in my home office and my wife came in and asked 'have you been in the kitchen?' This was a loaded question - we now had water all over the floor. The fine point that I had missed was that - not everyone has a dishwasher. This means that the black hose that goes in the the upper part of the unit, which is the dishwasher drain pipe, is not something that everyone has. For those that don't have a dishwasher - the port that this hose connects to is blocked. If I had read the instructions I would have learned that those of us that do have a dishwasher need to take a screwdriver and a hammer and knock out the plug that blocks off this port!

Now I have rerun the dishwasher and when it finished - the bottom of the dishwasher was no longer filled with water and - I did not have a small lake in my kitchen.

Perhaps next time I will remember not to do any plumbing jobs.