time for a new disposal

I decided to do some quick cleaning out of the refrigerator this morning, which mainly included throwing out some old spaghetti sauce, ruined strawberries and old chicken salad I made several weeks ago.  In the process of cleaning these containers out, I threw most of it down the garbage disposal.  Well, a few mins later, I realized there was standing water in the under-sink cabinet.  At first I just thought there was a pipe leak, but the more I investigated, I found spaghetti sauce splattered on the walls.  YUCK!  Clearly the disposal was somehow the culprit.
Although one glance at this thing and you can imagine why it might not be functioning to its best abilities anymore...

So much rust! But the real problem was a small hole that had (more than likely) rusted through the side.  And unfortunately water was all in, between and under all the "stuff" we keep under the sink.  And of course it ALL had to come out and get wiped down.

 Once we got the mess cleaned up, I made a quick trip to Lowe's and then a few hours later Greg had us back in business.  We got the InSinkErator "Evolution Compact," mainly because it was the cheapest price (excluding the Badger series, which was cheap in both price AND quality).  The Evolution series has multiple grinding stages (ours has 2), where the Badger just had 1 grind stage.  They also have "Sound Seal," which as it implies, means our new disposal is much quieter than a standard disposal.  There were 4 Evolution disposals to choose from ranging from ours for $179 up to the super fancy one which I believe was $340.  And I'm happy to report we are grinding smoothly and quietly better than ever!  And it looks 10x better too!