I'm the Dog Now, Man

I'm in trouble. How can you tell this? Michele actually updated her blog just to chastise me. Here's what happened...

Thursday night, the rubber spigot thingy ripped open while I was trying to pump up the air mattress. So instead of sleeping in mild discomfort on a cheap air mattress in an unfinished, musty basement, we threw some blankets down on the area rug and slept in extreme discomfort on the cement floor of an unfinished, musty basement. Oh, and cold. I forgot to mention cold. Truly, this is the lap of luxury.

Linens 'n Things was having a sale on Aerobeds, so we went there Friday night to pick one up. They had a stack of them in the middle of an isle, but they didn't have any Queen size in the model that was on sale. They did, however, have plenty of King size, for only twenty dollars more. It worked for us, so we loaded it in the cart.

They also had a bunch of leftover Christmas stuff on sale for 90% off. Ninety percent off!! There was a bucket of Peppermint stuff you mix with vodka and freeze that was marked down to only ninety-nine cents. But Michele wouldn't let me get it because I don't drink enough to warrant getting it. That may be the only time in history when a woman has said to her man that he doesn't drink enough. I still think the fact that it was ninety-nine cents was enough to warrant buying it. But alas, it remained perched on the display with several bags of red and green pretzels and some kind of weird Christmas tree/Santa hybrid, longing for someone to mix it with vodka and stick it in a freezer.

When we got to the register, the King size Aerobed rang up as the same price as the Queen size. What luck! Or was it? Dun Dun Duuunn...

We got it home and inflated it. All you have to do is plug it in and press a button. Well, two buttons, since it's the Duel Comfort Zone model. This thing is freaking HUGE. It's about the size of the base of an inflatable moon walk. At least I know if we ever need some extra cash, we can set it up on the front lawn and charge the neighborhood kids to jump up and down on it.

I will admit it's very comfortable. Almost makes you forget you're sleeping seven inches away from where your brother found a dead mouse a few months ago. It would be nice if we were a little higher off the ground, and as it turns out, Aerobed makes a special bed frame just for their beds. So Saturday was spent going from store to store looking for one. When that didn't work, I went online to the official Aerobed website. Guess what? They only make one type of bed frame, that stretches or folds to fit every size except King.

So we're sleeping in a low rider. No big deal, really. Except, of course, when an abnormally mild winter causes nonstop rain. Early Sunday morning I could hear the rain dripping off the house and crashing into the cement patio just outside the window. I prayed that it wasn't enough to start seeping into the basement, but I was too scared to look, because I knew exactly what I was going to see. When I finally did get up, my suspicions were confirmed. Although we were far from in danger of drowning, the water had made it's way under part of the rug, as well as underneath and behind the entertainment center. Well, that pretty much killed the morning. We frantically moved as much as we could upstairs; clothes, blankets, books, DVDs...leaving only a leather chair that we just moved to the other side of the room near the washing machine, and the entertainment center. It's one of those ones from Wal Mart that you put together yourself, and I expected it to get at least a little water damaged, so I wasn't too worried about it. But we still needed to keep as much water away from it as possible so it doesn't warp.

My mom whipped out the shop vac so we could try to stay ahead of the water. She attached it to a garden hose and told me to thread the other end outside the window. But the window, which had been broken for years and only recently fixed, appeared to have been cemented into the frame when it was repaired. There are two other windows in the basement, but they haven't been opened for thirty years and wouldn't budge. So the only option was to run the hose up the stairs and out the front door. Fortunately, it was warm outside, so we didn't have to worry about freezing our butts of with the front door open.

This is the part where I get in trouble. Being Superbowl Sunday, I had plans to go watch the game at Eric's house (aka the Fight Club house) on his insanely huge screen. He's got his cable box hooked up to a projector mounted on the back wall opposite an enormous screen. It looks like he mounted our Aerobed on the wall. Anyway, Michele knew I was going there and didn't have a problem with it, because the game wasn't until six. But I left at noon.

I don't know why I did that. Nick called and asked when I'd be ready, and I said I was ready now. In hindsight, I probably should have said something else. But the rain had stopped, and I just figured Glenn would keep up with the vacuuming. He'd only have to check in on it once an hour or so, and I saw it as a mutually beneficial arrangement: The water would get sucked up, and Glenn's muscles wouldn't atrophy from underuse.

And what did I do during the hours leading up to the big game? I um...ahem...I was playing a video game involving pushing marbles up hills. I'm secretly hoping that one day, the fate of my family, and perhaps even the world, will revolve around my ability to push a marble up a hill, and then they'll all be glad they'd I'd spent that time on the extensive training simulation, like The Last Starfighter.

I also worked in two games of Madden 06 with Jose. The first time we played Steelers vs. Seahawks, with my Seahawks proving victorious. The second time, I said "Hey, I know! Let's play as really crappy teams!!" So I picked the 49ers and Jose was the Saints. Nearly every one of his drives started at his own one or two yard line, thanks to my eeriely superhuman punting and kickoff game. And each time, I'd go for the sack in the endzone. In other words, I'd blitz and he'd just throw to Donte Stallworth, who was wide open and ran 99 yards down the feild for a touchdown. Even though I got burned every time, I still went for the saftey when he wound up backed up to the 2 a few minutes later. I was determined to get that saftey. I forget the final score of the game, but I'm sure Jose has it memerized.

As for the Superbowl itself...meh. I wasn't really emotionally vested in either team, but I was hoping for Seattle to win, if only to see Hines Ward start crying again about how this was Jereome Bettis' last chance. And the game would have been at least somewhat entertaining if Mike Holmgren knew how to manage a clock. I swear, he was like, "Alright boys, let's just take as much time off the clock as possible and we'll be home free. Oh wait, we're ten points behind?! Well, I suck." And Seattle's TE Stevens...I'm thinking he'll be playing for Pittsburgh next year, because from the looks of it last night, he's already started working for them. Yeah, he caught a touchdown pass, but that was probably an accident. If you have tennis rackets for hands, perhaps a career in the NFL isn't right for you. Maybe you should try, oh, I don't know...tennis.

That being said, I'm happy for Bill Cowher. That man really needed to smile. And Bettis got his Happily-Ever-After homecoming. I was most impressed with Antwaan Randle El and his touchdown pass, made even more impressive when you consider that he got folded in half during a play in the first half. It looked like his spine snapped like a twig. So congratulations to those guys and to all the Pittsburgh fans. Now Pennsylvania has something to talk about other than T.O. and Donovan McNabb's stupid Chunky soup. But it still doesn't change the fact that it was a pretty dull game.

If you missed the game, let me sum it up for you: Matt Hasslebeck is bald. Jerome Bettis is fat. And at one point during the third quarter, I swear to God, John Madden drew a penis on the telestrator.

Well, that's it for me today. If you need me, I'll be in the doghouse. Oh, and one more thing. Whatever you do, for the love of God, under no circumstances should you ever drink Redpop. That stuff will eat your soul.