A Toilet Phone, Fantasy Football & How My House Almost Burned Down…

Ever see that movie, Limony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events? Yeah, me neither. Jim Carrey kind of lost me after Bruce Almighty. Hey, Jim, if you ever decide to do another Ace Ventura, give me a call; I’ll be there opening night, popcorn and Junior Mints ready. Otherwise, continue to enjoy making millions off of movies that I’ll probably never see. But, hey, we’ll always have Fire Marshall Bill. Anyway, we here at the palatial Casa de Nervous Feet recently underwent our own series of unfortunate events. And while it didn’t involve blowing up an entire school, FMB style, it wasn’t all that far off. LEMME SHOW YOU SOMTHIN’!!

Unfortunate Event #1.) There are two things in this world that my wife guards with her life. One is her car. The other is her iPhone. Want to guess which one fell in the toilet last week? Yep, my wife’s Xterra got jacked up. Our toilet is huge. No, wait, that’s just me wishing it had been the car. That would have been far less dramatic. My wife would actually set her car on fire before she let anything happen to that phone. Fact. However, in her defense, some back story is in order. Last year, about five seconds after she sold her iPhone 3 and upgraded to the iPhone 4, it got stolen. We have excellent footage of the event from the restaurant’s video cameras. Too bad the police didn’t find it all that interesting. Thanks for nothing, Jefferson Parish P.D. Anyway, after months of saving and combining that with some Christmas cash, my wife was able to replace her phone and all was well with the world. Fast forward to last week….So there I was in my man cave, doing nothing in an awesome way, when I heard my wife scream something that I can’t repeat here. My first though: There’s a ninja in my house and my wife just got cut. Second thought: My first thought was stupid.

Upon emerging from my office, I arrived at the bathroom door to find my wife drying off her phone with her bath towel. She said she had reached for her phone on the counter and accidentally pushed it off into the toilet (I made a mental note to burn that bath towel). Next thing I know, the screen turns black and my wife looks like someone just shot her best friend in the face. I probably should have been more empathetic at the time, but I was too busy calculating how much blood I was going to have to sell in order to replace another iPhone. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. It turns out that someone had already dropped their iPhone in the toilet and had posted the solution online: rice. I’m guessing that person was MacGyver.

Long story short, my wife’s phone spent the next few days buried in a container of rice….over which an alter was built and candles were lit. I thought the incense and virgin goat sacrifices were a bit much, but whatever. I’m just glad it worked. The phone emerged from the rice four days later, good as new. Thanks, Uncle Ben. So the good news is we don’t have to buy a new phone. Yea for Aaron’s wallet. The bad news: My wife now talks on a toilet phone. That’s right, a toilet phone. That she puts on her face. The same face that she puts next to my face. For all you non math majors out there, let me break this down for you: Basically, I’ve peed on my wife’s face (Transitive property). And while that might be something R. Kelly may be into, I’m not. I’m currently dodging my wife like the plague until she’s due for another upgrade. When I agreed to that whole “for worse” thing at our wedding, I had no idea a pee tainted phone would be involved. I was so naive.

Unfortunate Event # 2.) There are a few things I quite like about renting: renters insurance is reasonably priced; I don’t have to cut grass; if something breaks, I get to call the landlord and let him deal with it. It’s a pretty sweet deal. But, as with most things in life, it does have its drawbacks: I’m not building any equity in a home and I have to share walls with other people…and the people who share those walls will eventually try their level best to burn your $#&% to the ground. You know what’s a good time? Thinking you smell something vaguely smoke-ish and then walking downstairs to discover a mist so thick you’re half expecting to bump into Sigourney Weaver and a #%$&ing gorilla. Things get real, real quick. If nothing else, it will cure any constipation you may have. It is also not the optimal time to realize that you haven’t checked the fire alarm battery in, oh, never. That one’s on me.

The next several minutes were a blur of opening doors and windows and trying to find the source. The stove was off and the outlets looked fine; nothing was engulfed in flames. This fire was obviously a hide and seek genius. I was on my third pass through the kitchen before my eye caught a stream of smoke coming from the vent above the stove. The vent that we share with the unit next door. Our neighbors were trying to kill us all. Excellent. Problem is…they didn’t appear to be home. Even better. Time to call the professionals.

With the fire department on the way, I suddenly realized that a golden opportunity was lying before me. This could very well be the only chance I ever get to kick in a door. Seriously, who doesn’t want to kick in a door? Nobody, that’s who. Now, granted, it didn’t really work out too well for that guy in Backdraft…but I’m willing to bet he felt awesome for the 0.3 seconds before he got blown into the next century. I like to think so, anyway. As for me, I didn’t even get the chance to chicken out, because when I stepped back outside, the door was already open with smoke billowing out–our neighbors had returned home. Well, one of them. It turns out the other one was across the breezeway the entire time visiting a friend while the chicken she left in the oven cooked over. Boy, he was not happy with her. I think. There was a lot of yelling in Spanish. Shortly thereafter, the fire department showed up…to put out a chicken.

Hey, you know what smells are great to have lingering in your house? A Christmas tree…freshly baked bread…big piles of money. You know what’s not? Smoke from a chicken fire. We currently have bags of volcanic rocks placed throughout the house to absorb the smell. Thankfully, it seems to be working. Plan B was to buy twelve Christmas trees and decorate them with those pine tree air fresheners you hang from your rear-view mirror, which I thought was a brilliant idea. But I guess the volcanic rock plan is a bit more practical. If not as much fun.

The Worst Thing That Has Ever Happened. Unfortunate Event #3.) This year marked the second time my wife and I have played each other in fantasy football. Last year, she caught me with two of my best players on bye and pulled out the win. It was a hollow victory that she seemed to enjoy, nonetheless. Well, you know what? She can take her bragging rights and shove….Sorry, I get carried away. Anyway, I had been waiting for Business Time v. Junk Punch, round two, for a whole year and it was finally go time. Oh, and lookie who has their two best players on bye this year: Not me. All I’m missing is a stupid tight end. Who’s ready for an incredibly meaningful, vengeance-filled victory this year? Two thumbs pointed straight at this guy. Somebody que up the Warren G, because I’m about to regulate. I even had plans to purchase billboard space and commercial time to broadcast my triumph. Redemption was all lined up…and then the fantasy football gods decided to dropkick me in the junk. Again.

As with most avalanches, it started small. News broke early in the week that one of my starting running backs would miss Sunday’s game with a groin injury. Super. I should still be OK, though. I’ll just have to plug in my backup, Pierre Thomas, and hope for the best. That will make the Saints game more interesting to watch, anyway. Besides, I’ve still got enough fire power to pull this thing out; my team is pretty stacked. My team is full of morons who are not very good at football.

We spent the first round of games at my brother-in-law’s house, with the rest of her family. My wife spent most of her time previewing her victory dance. I countered by throwing a pillow at her head when Pierre Thomas scored a touchdown. What? It was a soft pillow. And, besides, if you break out a premature victory dance in this league, you get something thrown at your face; that’s just the way it is. Only it turned out to not be so premature: I got rolled. For the second year in a row. My team, who had been in a dog fight all year to be the highest scoring team in the league, forgot all of a sudden what to do with that brown pigskin thingy everyone else on the field seemed to be making such a big fuss over. Meanwhile, her “team” of bye week fill-ins and paint chip eaters scored more than Charlie Sheen at a hooker convention. Shoot me. Business Time v. Junk Punch, round three: 365 days and counting.

So, yeah, it was a pretty interesting week. But the real icing on the cake came when both my wife and I caught the stomach bug that was apparently in attendance at the game day party (The universe: It sees that you’re down and just keeps kicking anyway). We both spent the next day face planted in our chicken-smoke scented home, buckets within reach, praying for the sweet release of death. I just made sure to remind my wife that when she sprinted for the bathroom, to please leave her phone behind. There isn’t enough rice in the world…