REVERSE ENGINEERING - HOW DO THEY DO IT?

I'm not talking about the kind of reverse engineering like they do at Roswell and Area 51, where they take a captured UFO and figure out how to use its technology to build flying saucers for the military, or they take DNA from an alien, cross-breed it with beef jerky and a baboon and come up with Keith Richards. I'm talking about the technology at work right here at home in my kitchen sink. We have this drain basket; it has a strainer part, with holes in it, so the water can flow through but bits of food are caught before they clog up your drain. And it also has a plug part, which hangs down below the strainer. There's a cam system so that, by rotating the plug, you can either have it in the down position so it blocks the drain and you can fill the sink with water, or you can put it in the up position, so that it hangs above the drain and water can still flow through. You probably have one at home yourself. The problem here is that this device has a 100% record for doing the reverse of what I want it to do. This is beyond Murphy. 100% of the time, if I want to fill the sink up with water, the plug doesn't hold. 100% of the time, if I want the basket in place to catch food particles, it'll instead plug the drain, and the sink will fill with water! HOW DOES IT DO THAT????