Both Emily and HR Neglected This...

I don't proclaim to know everything that Emily Post had written, but I can say with 90 percent certainty that Emily Post failed to mention how to handle one particular scenario for which I desperately needed to know earlier today. And I know with a 100 percent certainty that the employee handbook didn't cover this either...

What do you do when you are greeted with a foul smelling air lingering in the restroom when all you needed to do was tingle; and while you make audible gagging sounds and hurry through your tingle, the toilet flushes in a stall and out comes someone you work with? And what do you do when you go to wash your hands and you realize it was your boss's turd aroma responsible for the stench, and he asks, "How's it going, John?" while he dries his hands with paper towels?

Do you make short little acknowledgments? Or do you try to carry a normal conversation pretending you're in his office? And do you keep eye contact at all, or focus on the lather on your hands? Or is it simply best to look at him through the mirror?

Help?

I Pity The Girls

Well, today had been a day like no other. After two weeks of grueling hell at work, I am finally embarking on a westward journey towards regaining my sanity Or at least that's the hope. With gifts in tow, I am finally getting to see my brand new niece, who was born on June 1. The week and a half ahead is going to be hectic and stressful, I'm sure. But it is definitely going to be a welcoming stress, unlike the stress induced by my workplace of late.

Because I was unable to secure any reasonable fared flight the day before Independence Day, I was forced into flying out tonight instead. So I'll be working remotely from Los Angeles tomorrow. So let's see how many times do I have to recharge my cellular battery during the whole course of the day. After the work day, I am hoping that I'll get to enjoy dinner with my parents, who had flown over to the United States to celebrate their first grandchild in their lives.

The fun begins on Friday morning, when I take my father on the Coast Starlight, an Amtrak train that links the entire western coast between Los Angeles and Seattle. Supposedly, it has been billed by most fanatical train travelers as one of the top 10 train routes in the world, mostly for its scenery. Really, the scenery is best when traveling southbound, but I heard from others that northbound is just as great. I suppose it has something to do with the time of day when the train passes certain parts of the coast.

After we arrive in Seattle late Saturday evening, we'll be relaxing at the Homewood Suites in downtown Seattle, an abode I have frequently rested my weary soul when I had my long term assignment earlier in my career. I'm not quite sure what Sunday morning will bring after a good night's rest, but I do know that I'll be taking my father to the Mariners' game on Sunday. As typical Asians that we are, I'm sure food will be a priority before the 13:00 game, as well as afterwards.

On Monday, we'll be taking a long car ride north to catch a ferry to Orcas Island. I have already reserved a few seats on the Orcas Express, which will take us on a whale watching tour. I'm hoping that we'll get to see much of the wildlife, and this is something I'm especially excited about, because I have not done this myself. Because the drive itself is going to be in the hours, the whole day will be spent on this little trip. But on the way back, I'm sure I'll stop by Facing East in Bellevue for some delicious, authentic Taiwanese food.

Before heading for the airport on Tuesday, I'm going to take my father on a short little hike towards the iconic Space Needle. If time permits, probably ride the Emerald City's claim to international fame, the aging monorail. And probably show him the fish market too. After all that fun, we'll be flying down to Las Vegas and checking in at the Bellagio.

Then Wednesday will just continue the travel madness with an bright and early trip to the Grand Canyon west rim, with a stop at the Hoover Dam, a past symbol of American prosperity and power, followed by a trip to the Skywalk. We'll also have a helicopter ride that will take us down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and take a boat ride up and down the Colorado River, before taking the bus back to the Bellagio. All that will take up the entire 11 hours of the day.

But it doesn't end there. We also have tickets to the Cirque du Soleil "O" show at 22:30 later that evening! Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? I just hope my father have the energy to do all that. As all good things must come to an end, we will flying back to Los Angeles the next day. This will definitely be a welcome reprieve, when I rejoin my sister and mother to coo at Savannah, my niece. Of course, like all Asian families, when things such as family get together become rare, we absolutely must have a family portrait taken. I can't wait to see the results of this.

So as I sit high above in the sky in a steel tube called the Southwest Airlines Boeing 737, I'm thinking ahead of this trip. And here is the unusual part of my day; I apologize for the seven paragraph digression. In all of my travels in the past seven years, I have never ever gotten to the airport with ample time to spare. My time has always been a treasure, so I try to cut it close as much as possible so I don't spend too much time on the road and away from my friends or condo. Of course, the exception has always been when flying on international flights, and that is only because security procedures are different, and the boarding time is significantly longer than on domestic flights when planes are typically smaller.

I actually made it to Midway today with two hours to spare!

Well, don't start emailing me with words of congratulations or anything like that yet. I have to admit that the reason why I arrived early was definitely not by design or forethought. I honestly thought that my flight departs at 19:05. When I finally read my boarding pass, I realized that it was actually 19:50. Oops!

But the evening just got weirder. While waiting at the gate on a rocking chair beside a wall receptacle, a stunning woman walked past me. Of course, seeing stunning girls at airports is nothing new, but I think she is one of the tenants who bought a condo in my building. I wanted to stop her in her tracks and say hi, but I was on the cellular phone unfortunately.

And the final thing that's weird today? As I sit in the second row at the forward galley of the plane, I'm observing the party of four taking up the first row on both sides of the aisle ahead of me. It's a father, a son, and two younger daughters. The sad part is that each and every one of them, father included, had their own little gadget. Everybody has an iPod. Everybody has some kind of a portable gaming system. The boy's got the Playstation Personal, the middle girl's got the Nintendo DS, and the youngest one's got some hot pink gaming system, presumably a cheapo.

Anyway, the boy is always messing with the younger ones. And he is definitely a boy with no manners. He demands things from the flight attendant, and it bothers me slightly that she just sits there and take his crap in like a person of servitude. But what bothered me the most was when he got up to use the lavatory. Not even a full minute had passed before he emerges from it and returns to his seat without shutting the door, leaving us passengers in the front to enjoy a nice shit and piss stink in the air. At first I thought he only needed to check something, like young curious boys typically do. But when it was my turn to go use the lavatory, I was greeted with a big pool of stinky, yellow pee staring right back at me!

That dirty mofo not only failed to flush the toilet, but he obviously failed to wash his hands on top of shutting the door! And the dad is not slightly fazed by all this. I had to tap the boy in the shoulder to ask him to shut the door earlier!

And as he sits there, he continues to mess with his sister, like blocking the screen to her gaming system, or nudging her in the face, or sneezing into his hands and wiping the snot all over her, or something. And all I can think of is that he's smearing his sweaty, stinky penis juice all over his sisters!!! That is just not cool. I don't even want to know how they're like at home. Kind of reminded me of this kid who likes to dig his fingers into his ass through his pants and shove it into my face to make me gag when I was growing up. And the worst part of it all? I couldn't do anything about it because he was the son of my father's boss!

I hate disgusting boys... And so, I pity the girls...

The Trouble With Sandals

For as long as I can remember, I have always been a socks and shoes kind of a guy. The thought of wearing a pair of shoes without socks? I'd rather eat your grandmothers lacy panties than ever entertaining the thought of wearing a pair of trainers or dress shoes without socks. And it is for this very reason why I have for the longest time in my life avoided wearing sandals, or any kind of footwear that involves open feet.

Well, I do have to say that there was a brief moment in my early adult life that I actually wore a special kind of sandals, which was all strappy; one that had multiple straps that go over your foot from either side. Nothing got in the way between my toes. But even then, and my friends from that era of my life can fully attest, I still opted to wear socks along with that strappy sandal. Thank God I was nowhere near the fashion police. Was it fear of my feet getting exposed to the elements, like say, air? I don't know. Was it my desire to keep my feet nice and smooth to the touch, so that there aren't huge calluses built up on top of the sports calluses I had already built up in high school varsity basketball years? Not sure either.

But in either case, I have always avoided sandals. A hot August day in extreme humid Chicago? Socks and shoes. A stroll down the beach in Florida with my friends while vacationing in the summertime? Socks and shoes.

Until...

Well, some time near the end of last year, a friend and I were strolling through a running expo when we encountered a booth run by Crocs. Unlike myself, I'm sure most of you have heard of and bought Crocs years ago before they became a fad among teens and mothers unwilling to let go of their yuppie youth. Much like how I joined MySpace and Facebook only after they were no longer the in thing to do.

Anyway, I finally gave a pair of Crocs sandals a shot, and oh my gosh!!! They were scooshy and comfortable. They were nothing like the sandals I have ever owned as a kid, or the one and only kind I had in my young adulthood. Despite its exorbitant sticker price, I bought a pair! Only to sit in my plastic bag for months on end...

But when the day finally came for me to wear my new Crocs sandals, I began loving it. By then, it was already winter, so my chance of wearing them were as frequent as giving your little kitties a bath. But for every moment when I had to wear them, such as going down to the laundry room, or a brisk walk here and there, they worked marvelously.

Of course, sometimes I forget things given the span of time. Until today. I knew after running my half marathon, my feet would want to do some sort of rest and relaxation. What better way to pamper my own feet after they had helped me accomplish what I did than by going through the travel day wearing the Crocs I had bought the previous Fall?

Everything was hunky dorey. The drive from Fredericksburg to Baltimore was comfortable. The ride from the airport rental car station to the airport terminal was not so much comfortable. As the shuttle turned a corner, a luggage tipped over towards me. As I would usually do as if I was wearing regular shoes, I used my feet to prop the luggage back up. Only problem now was that when the heavy luggage got on top of my feet, it crushed a couple toes. And boy, did it hurt!

But that alone wasn't the problem. After snaking through the dumbest bright idea TSA came up for BWI's security checkpoint, I decided to head to the restroom and rid myself of some liquid that I had held in for hours. There were about six urinals open, and a guy was already using urinal number two. So being the smart gentleman, I went to urinal number four so as to give him some space. You know, this is a silent code of conduct that every man knows in regards to urinals. But as soon as I began letting my stream go, an old man (which, by the way, I have nothing against old people; it was simply an observation) came up to the bank of urinals and picked urinal number five, which was right next to me. When of all other urinals, he could have still maintained his code of conduct without being next to me.

Urgh!!! I mean, that bothered me somewhat, but not nearly to the extent of what happened next. I don't understand this, as urinals typically have a drip lip at the bottom, but sometimes I have always wondered why there were so much pee on the floor despite the innovative urinal design. And this old bugger somehow managed to splash his pee all over the place! And being right next to me, guess where some of that splatter landed?

On my exposed right foot. Which happened to be wearing my Crocs sandals. Open... Feet...

My jaws dropped to the ground. I was in shock. I was in utter disgust. I have never for once splattered myself while using the urinal, but how the hell did this old fart manage to pee and splatter onto me? As I muttered a muffled "mothereffer" and shook my head, I was then reminded of a similar incident over a month ago when I wore the Crocs to a movie theatre.

God, I need to remember lessons like this. So yeah, the trouble with wearing sandals is that although they are comfortable as they expose your feet to the elements, they also expose your feet to the unwanted elements, such as other peoples' pee. Or if you wear them to a bar, other peoples' drinks. Or the hot drunk chick's puke, whom you've been bumping and grinding the last half hour. Of course, other than the pee incident, the other scenarios are simply conjectural in nature. But one cannot help but imagine...

So yeah, I'm not sure if wearing sandals really suit me anymore. Of all the benefits I get from wearing them, I think the thought of being peed on is quite a rather turn off. Not even if I got stung by a jellyfish, which would necessitate someone peeing on me.

So yeah, that's the trouble with sandals.

Sangria Flavored Skewered Shrimp Wrapped in Bacon

Alternate Alternate Title: I'll Never Drink Again

BLOG MA: This blog entry has been rated BLOG MA. It is intended for mature audiences. Or anyone who can withstand a little graphic discussion.

A sudden blurred image came to view. It was bright. A blink. Still bright, but clearer. The Royal White-painted ceiling lit up by the strong rays of sunshine was all I could see on this bright Saturday morning. Then suddenly, I gasped for air, and shot straight up into a sitting position. I was in pain. I felt like someone had knocked me unconscious.

As I slowly stirred out of my sleep on my couch, I tried to piece back together what had happened. A quick glance at the clock revealed that it was 10:50. I tried to return to sleep, but it was useless as the sun wouldn't have any of it. Or it could be very well possible that I was at one time a cheapskate who bought blinds that aren't good at blocking out light.

On Friday evening, I took the subway after work and headed over to my friend Matt's place. The plan? A bunch of guys were going out to celebrate his last weekend as a bachelor. Because I didn't have enough time to go home and drop off my laptops, Matt said I could first meet up at his place so I can drop off my bags before heading out to the first resto-bar. (That's Toronto-speak for any bar that also serves food.) My plan was simple: Hang out with the guys for a little bit like a couple hours tops, celebrate, then head home at a decent time. I wanted to return to playing football with this really good group I had met before beginning my marathon training in the summer. Somehow, judging by the situation I found myself in this Saturday morning, I realized that my game plan went by the wayside. Like way the f**k in Egypt kind of side.

You see, I kind of had a really shitty two weeks. Don't get me wrong, as my weekend in San Francisco was mostly fun peppered in, but without going into details, fate seemed to designate for the most part of the last couple weeks as hell week for me. Instead of moping around in my own sorrow, I decided that the wife of Dog the Bounty Hunter may be right when she said, "When going through hell, don't stop." So I decided to ride on through hell. With the aid of liquid poison which we shall name Miller Lite. And to-kill-ya. And whatever the hell shots the guys bought throughout the night.

Anyway, it all started simply enough. Spanish tapas dinner and drinks at Moe's Cantina. Along with their fabled sangria. The food was delicious. The drinks even sweeter and palatable. It became quite obvious that the bacon-wrapped shrimp skewers were the group favorite, because we ordered six skewers of it, two at a time. Not so favorite? Vegetable skewer. Apparently we were all members of PETA; people eating tasty animals.

As the night was still young, the bar wasn't exactly hopping, but with the eight of us, we managed to be the loudest bunch drawing attention from the many other patrons. Of course, the fact that Matt was wearing all kinds of colorful beads helped a lot. But not as much as the good looking fellas that we were. =)

As we bar-hopped around Wrigleyville, things started becoming a blur. Instead of pacing myself slowly, I managed to consume two drinks at each bar, along with shots people bought. And at each bar we stopped at, we had a rule to this game. We had to, uhm, smoke a fag (that's British talk for a cigarette) before hitting the next bar.

Well, all I can say is that after several bar-hopping and smoking fags, the group of eight slowly dwindled down to four. In the end, I found myself hitting on girls waiting in line at the famed Taco Hell (which always happens every time I go to that Taco Hell across from Wrigley Field), while Matt and the crew enjoyed (albeit briefly) my drunken stupor. I don't remember how we got there, or which bar we had left prior to getting there, but here we were, at Taco Hell. As usual, I ordered a Southwestern Bowl. Not quite sure which kind, or how I paid for it, but after all the flirting at the line, I managed to take pictures with seven hot girls. (I later had to delete pictures of four of them, because I later discovered that they weren't exactly hot when I was sober, if you know what I mean. Thankfully, the other three turned out exceptional, with one standing out like a girl in bikini in a corporate boardroom full of suited chicks.)

After remembering that much, I decided to get off the couch. I had to pee real bad. But I also had a mouth of parched leather, so I took a detour into my kitchen. I downed a big bottle of Strawberry-Kiwi flavored Propel as if I had just been rescued from the Sahara Desert. Feeling partially satiated, I walked through the hallway towards the bathroom. What laid before me was trail of artifacts. The hallway starting from the front door turning right into the bathroom was first my belt. Then my jeans. Then my underwear. What?!? I quickly looked down at my crotch to make sure I had not been sleeping commando. Strangely enough, I had on a pair. Where I had gotten it, I wasn't sure.

Right through the doorway into my bathroom, my work bag was sitting down there, next to my Chicago Marathon jacket that I had worn on Friday evening. This trail from belt to jacket led from the front door to the edge of the toilet. Then I suddenly remembered partially what happened when I got home. I had this nagging urge to take a huge dump, and couldn't wait to get out of the cab! I must have started undressing before even dropping off my heavy bag while rushing into the bathroom. I chuckled at this sudden remembrance.

When I lifted the toilet seat, the sight before my very eyes made me gag before muttering, "What the... NAA...ASTY!!!" Then I looked around the bathroom floor, and the tornadic arrangement on the floor jogged my memory even more. I don't remember the cab ride from Matt's place to my home, but I remembered falling down the final flight of stairs at Matt's apartment complex and thinking subsequently that my ankles better not be jacked up because I was going to run a few miles of the Chicago Ultra Marathon later that day, and hit the Trick or Treat Trot 5K on Sunday. I certainly don't remember flagging down a cab, but I do remember paying the cabbie when I got home.

Because I had not taken a dump all Friday long, and with having had a huge lunch and a relatively large and festive dinner with the guys, I couldn't hold it in much longer. But as I sat there on the toilet and squeezed my abdominal muscles, I remembered feeling relieved. I also remembered that after I wiped myself, I suddenly had to puke because I had squeezed my tummy too hard. Being bent over on the toilet certainly didn't help, and I felt the food coming upwards. It came out so fast and sudden like Mount Santorini when it devastated the Minoan civilization. It was so sudden that I had to jump off the toilet (thank God I wiped!) and stick my head in the toilet! I thought my response was lightning quick, but apparently not, because on Saturday morning, I could see that I had missed my aim on one of my hurls.

To make matters worse, I definitely did not remember the toilet clogging up after I had done puking when I flushed. So here I was, on Saturday morning, with my head hurting in pain, I was staring at the nastiest thing I had ever done in my own home. A mix of fecal matter and pieces of shrimp, bacon and cilantro caked into the toilet bowl. Great! I don't have much time before I had to go run Elaine in on her final two miles of the Chicago Ultra Marathon, and I have to pee! As a germaphobe that I have always been, I couldn't possibly leave this mess alone. I had to clean it, as much as I didn't want to.

Thinking that maybe after all night of sitting there, my crap might have softened up enough for it to be flushable. I pulled on the flush lever, and hoped for the best. Unfortunately for me, all that nastiness filled up nearly to the brim. Luckily, nothing overflowed. Damn!!! Because I have never clogged up my toilet before, I never had the need to own a plunger. So I went down to the building engineer's office and borrowed his industrial plunger.

As I sat there and plunged away as carefully as I could without splashing all that e-coli tainted water, I got tired pretty soon. After all, I had to pee, and I was hungry too. What I needed to do right then was to eat a hot, soupy noodle meal and pee, not wasting my time plunging. But I just had to clean this mess before starting out the day, because I was sure that once my sinuses had cleared out after the Zyrtec pills were popped, I would really know how bad my condo smelled. Bathroom cleaning became priority number one.

After plunging for almost half an hour to no avail, I began panicking. I washed my hands, got onto the computer, and looked up Elaine's time at the 2006 Chicago Marathon to see what her long distance pace was, so that I could calculate and see how long it would take her to complete the 31 mile ultra marathon. A quick calculation revealed that I had to be on the course by 14:00 or else she would have finished since the race started 08:30. I looked at the clock, and it was already 12:45. Not good.

Then I suddenly realized that I had never used a plunger before, so it could be possible that I was doing it all wrong, considering that I had been plunging away for over half an hour. I Googled for "toilet plunging tips", and was pleased at the few professional advice available on the interwebs. I was even more pleased that all recommended several do-it-yourself procedures before calling in the professional, as I thought I was nearing that point.

After watching diagrams of basic toilet designs, and how plungers work, I suddenly realize that the word plunger was very misleading. I thought as a device to plunge things, you're forcing the culprit of the clog to be forced through the toilet by the air pocket trapped in the cup of the plunger. It turned out that the cup at the end of the plunger was designed to create suction, because you're pulling the questionable debris back into the toilet bowl so that said debris (or shit, as I call it) can begin flowing in pieces instead of one large clump. Aha! That explains why a bowlful of shit along with puke certainly was the right recipe to create a clog! I also learned that the number top culprits for clogged toilets are usually: 1) toys or missing makeup, 2) humongous hard turd, and 3) cat litter. Really, people dump cat litter in the toilet?!?

But before I could begin practicing my newly acquired housekeeping skills, I had to do something else as explained by the online advisors. Find a plastic cup and a bucket, and empty out the toilet bowl to just an inch or so above the normal resting waterline after a normal flush. And thankfully, the whole procedure was accompanied by a video instruction! As much as I hated this, I had to do what it said. I know this is kind of gross, but I decided to mention the whole process in my blog because I found this newly discovered skill extremely helpful. And it will be helpful to you too, because like me, you will one day be a homeowner.

As I began plunging away with a bucket full of shit, puke, and food particles beside me, I started to get disheartened. Because after fifteen minutes of plunging, I got nowhere. And it was already 13:00. And why was I holding onto the bucket of shit water? Apparently, modern house plumbing designs have separated the line from the toilet from the line in our sink. The online instructor mentioned that dumping fecal matter down the kitchen sink will make it all the harder to process into drinking water. And since I'm a big fan of tap water, the bucket of shit remained next to me. Oh, how I wished I lived next to a farm...

By now, I had gotten desperate. I looked online again to see what other professional tips could help. And this final one held the magic key. You're supposed to plunge the toilet with fast up and down strokes, with no more than three seconds apart between each stroke. Damn! Is this guy for real? Toilet plunging somehow managed to turn from a simple household activity into a procedure as complicated as giving CPR! I was just glad that mouth-to-toilet resuscitation was not a prerequisite. And after another 15 minutes of plunging to no avail, I decided that I should feed my starving tummy and find a way to pee.

While the Korean noodles cooked, I couldn't hold my pee in any longer. A light bulb suddenly came on. I looked at the empty half liter Propel bottle sitting on the kitchen counter, and thought that maybe I could just pee into the bottle. After all, I doubt my bladder could hold onto half a liter of pee. So there I went. Now, if you were wondering why I didn't just pee in the sink, I actually had thought of that. My rationale went like this: I didn't want pee splashing anywhere onto my kitchen counter. End of story with that one. But as the waterline (really, peeline to be exact) neared the top of the bottle, I began to panic. Shit! What if I can't stop midstream?!? With about two inches to go, I squeezed as hard as I possibly could. My first pee of the day after a long night of sleep; could I possibly do this?

Even to my own amazement, I stopped just in time!!! Hallelujah!!! With just a quarter of an inch to go! After carefully pouring it down the sink right into the hole so as to have zero splash, I peed the rest into the now empty warm bottle. Holy shit! I filled half the bottle before completely emptying out my bladder. Can human bladders really hold 750 ml of pee?!? And if you're wondering about pee being recycled back into drinking water, take heart that pee is sterile. Mine just might taste like Miller Lite or tequila.

Glad as I was that I solved my pee problem, I washed my hands and sat down to eat my Korean noodles. Then suddenly, I began to whimper. Like a stupid girl who suddenly got really emotional over nothing, like eating a bowl of spicy noodles. My thoughts? Here I am, a young man of great talent, who has always been nice and good to his friends, who was successful with a flowering career, and suddenly fate gave him two weeks of pure hell! And I was reduced to scooping shit and puke out of a toilet into my nice bucket reserved only for mopping my floors, and peeing into a bottle like an uncivilized caveman with absolutely no manners. And worst of all? In my drunken stupor, my Nokia N95 was stolen the night before by the time when I returned home.

As if fate didn't have enough of this mockery, I was also given the pleasure to be stuck with the whole toilet plunging business. Such a simple household chore, and a man with a degree who works for a great technology company such as IBM couldn't freaking figure out how to plunge his own shit through the toilet! Then I cried just a little harder, like a poor helpless girl who suddenly realized later the consequence of sugarless nights after the initial outcry when discovering somebody had stolen her bucket of candy the morning after Halloween.

Yeah, it was that depressing. As I wiped away my tears and began forcing food down my throat as I no longer was hungry while feeling all sad for myself, I then decided that it would be best that I just stay home and not go run Elaine in on her final two miles of the Ultra Marathon. But after a couple bites of the Korean noodle, I suddenly realized that I might just had hit rock bottom. I know, so cliché, isn't it? And things suddenly got clearer, after I thought things through with my hungover mind and put things in perspective. Elaine's grandfather's health had suddenly deteriorated at a greater pace, and she had been a mess since Friday. She couldn't finish the Chicago Marathon, especially when she was running for charity for her grandparents who suffered Alzheimer's. This Ultra Marathon was to make up for the botched Chicago Marathon. The sudden news that her grandfather may pass any minute soon really made me realize that what I was going through was pee-nuts compared to what Elaine was going through.

So I wiped up my tears, and finished my Korean noodles as fast I could. I began laughing like a 14 year old girl, because I realized that however horrible my life had briefly been, and however terrible my current situation was, it was all funny in retrospect. I won't laugh now, but I sure will next week. And of course, this could be very blog-worthy. For me, at least.

After putting my empty bowl in the sink, I attacked the clogged toilet again, but with determination this time. Come hell or high water, I was going to be out there cheering and running Elaine in. I sat on the brim of the bathtub, next to the bucket full of liquefied shit, and plunged away. Twenty minutes went by, but I pressed on. Then suddenly, the little bit of mess started going down. I lifted the plunger to make sure. And it did, slowly. I waited, and then cautiously flushed. The water swirled around and rose up. But it continued to swirl. Then voila! The whole thing swirled down the toilet!

Hallelujah!!! Allah be praised! Baby lord Jesus be praised! My combo number 9 (shit and puke) went down! Then I poured the bucket of shit down the toilet, and flushed. It all went down too!!! Then I began cleaning my toilet and bucket. I looked at the clock, and it was 13:50. I guess I had no time to shower, and no point to do so when I'd be sweating again when I run Elaine in later on.

I made it down to the race course on time, and she was very appreciative of my support. I just didn't tell her the hellish morning that I had to go through that morning. At that point in time, I reprioritized things. The Halloween Pub Crawl on Saturday afternoon will have to wait, or skipped altogether, even though I had spent $50 working on my dorky costume. I had to go to the Nokia store and see if they had a registry for stolen phones just in case if the new owner decided to take it in for warranty support. And I also had to go to the AT&T store to get a new SIM card so I could at least reconnect to the outside world with my older Nokia N91 phone. I also wanted to see if they have a registry of stolen devices, and if they can block stolen devices from connecting to the network. The guy said it was possible, but that I had to call Customer Service for that and provide the IMEI code. This looked promising.

While I sat there plunging my toilet, a thought did occur to me, because in the middle of it all, I felt a bump in my forehead and tried to figure out why I had a particular sharp pain over my left eyebrow. I suddenly remembered why I missed my first hurl at the toilet after I shat. With my Chicago Marathon jacket on the bathroom floor, the fleece on tiled floor just made for a slippery condition. And when I jumped up, I had slipped and fell. And on the way down, I slammed my forehead on the corner of my bathroom sink. I guess in retrospect, I should be thankful that that was all it was. I mean, I could've cracked a tooth on the toilet bowl! Or worse, stuck my whole arm into a toilet full of shit as I came crashing down. And then I thought, oh my goodness, what if I had the cell phone in my jacket all along, but because I was tearing off my clothes so fast that it dropped out of my coat pocket and fell into the toilet, thus the clog?!?

Now that would be an interesting turn of events if that had been the case. But in the meantime, I've left voicemails with the Yellow Cab of Chicago after reviewing the security video of my condo to determine that it was in fact a Chicago Yellow Cab. But no cab number, unfortunately, due to poor video quality... But that's a good start. And I'll been monitoring eBay for any new posting of a used Nokia N95 without the charger within 100 miles of Chicago starting October 27.