Thanksgiving Day cooks and their guests will gunk up kitchen sinks and overtax toilets today, making tomorrow the busiest day of the year for plumbers.

"I tell people, 'Don't use the disposal as a garbage can,' " said Dean Morimoto, the owner of Banzai Plumbing. " 'The garbage can works just as well.' "

Most of the damage today will occur when people jam potato peels, turkey bones and all sorts of foodstuffs down their garbage disposals. But most of them won't bother to call a plumber until tomorrow, sending plumbers scrambling all over O'ahu until late in the evening.

Some customers might hesitate because they don't want to pay holiday rates of an additional $30 or so to bring out a plumber on Thanksgiving Day. That's on top of the typical $160 it costs to unclog a toilet or garbage disposal.

But Ross Browning, field supervisor for Mr. Rooter Plumbing, which has no holiday rates, thinks customers just don't want to hassle with unclogging a toilet or garbage disposal while they're entertaining a houseful of guests.

"People are usually busy and say, 'I can't deal with this today,' " Browning said. "They're usually more concerned with what's happening in the house."

But tomorrow, each of Mr. Rooter Plumbing's eight plumbers is expected to be at work for a long day of unclogging pipes on O'ahu.

"It is the busiest day of the year," Browning said. "Eight guys will have to do about 40 calls, and somebody will stretch into the night."

The biggest kitchen sink problem is usually caused by too many potato peels jammed into a garbage disposal, Browning and Morimoto said.

"And let's just say the toilet facilities get used to the maximum and you get problems from misuse and overuse — the kind of problems you don't want to happen on the holidays," Browning said.

Roto-Rooter Plumbers typically only gets eight to 10 calls on Thanksgiving Day, said dispatcher Ella Saloricman.

"Thanksgiving is slow," Saloricman said. "But the day after Thanksgiving is bad. It's really, really bad. People jam carrots in the disposal or they throw rice, which is the favorite thing. We let them know, 'Please don't do that.' You know how when you eat rice and it expands in your stomach? It does the same thing in your kitchen sink. It expands. But we see all kinds of stuff, cranberries, salads, bones ..."

So tomorrow, when the guests are gone and the hosts are left with a gummed-up mess, Saloricman expects to be greeted in the morning with desperate telephone messages to start the busiest day of the year and what could be as many as 80 calls for plumbing service.

"They mostly say, 'I need help,' " Saloricman said.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.