Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been repeatedly asked “What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?” It’s usually followed with an “Uncle Joe”. That kind of gives you a hint on who keeps asking the question. Apparently, the younger members of the clan find of some of my more stellar moments both amusing and amazing. They seem absolutely astounded by the sheer number of stories I can relate. Yes I do repeat some of my stories. After all, I do have my favorites. Then again, I am also continually adding to the list so there is almost always a new story to tell. The young-uns just seem so fascinated. I don’t know if it’s because I tell such a riveting tale, or if they are just questioning the gene pool from which they’ve sprung. I’m not sure this next story is deserving of being on the “Most Stoopidest” list. If it isn’t, it definitely deserves an honorable mention. Or in my case, I guess you need to call it Dishonorable Mention.

A little while ago the Little Woman and I were having a spirited discussion. There was a significant level of passion on both sides. And the volume was quite high. She had her view point which unfortunately didn’t coincide with mine. She was as passionately debating her position as I was my own. OK, if you want to know the truth, we were fighting. I know you find that hard to believe but it’s true. I don’t know why but apparently SHE sometimes finds ME hard to deal with. Can you imagine that? ME? I know.  I’m shocked too. I find me quite easy to be around. Anyway, we were going at it. I don’t remember why. Maybe she washed the lights with the darks, maybe she let the green beans touch the mashed potatoes or maybe it was that she changed the channel when I wasn’t looking. I can’t remember exactly. All I know is, in this particular battle, I was winning. Can you imagine that, I had the upper hand? Please bear in mind this is a woman that if you walked into a room and found her standing there covered in red paint, holding a red paint brush with red paint all over the rug and furniture, she would argue that she wasn’t the one that made the mess with the red paint. And 9 times out of 9 she’d win the debate! However, this day I was running the show. She was mine. I had her dead to rights. In this altercation, I was ahead and she wasn’t going to worm her way out. I tell you what, she’ll never throw socks in with my underpants again.

When I was good and satisfied that I had sufficiently proven my point, that I was on the side of justice and honor , that I was right and she was wrong, I decided that I should take a short break. I decided that I would take a quick respite and repose myself to a quiet place to revel in my victory and let her stew in her own juices for a little bit. So I adjourned to the throne room. OK, so I had to use the facilities. The timing wasn’t right, but when a man’s got to go, a man’s got to go. So I went upstairs. The whole time I’m going I’m still explaining to the Misses the errors of her ways. She’s yelling after me something about my being too grumpy and a royal PITA. Or something of that nature, I don’t really know. I don’t listen when I’m winning (or losing for that matter).

Anyway when I got to my destination, I had to prepare for what I was about to do. Basically, I had to raise the thrones' seat. After all, sometimes the King stands. Now believe it or not, I was a still a little miffed. Yes, my blood was still boiling, or maybe it was the excitement of actually being in the position to win a debate. To date my record was 0-99-1. I was on the verge of chalking up my first win you know. I was a little excited either way you choose to look at it. When I lifted the seat, I kind of tossed it up. As you would expect, it hit the back of the throne, and bounced back. Now I’m standing there and the seat is down. I'm all ready to go, but the target is fogged in so to speak. I don’t think this is funny, I'm all cranked up, I'm deperately in need of my break, and the seat is back in my way. So I tossed it again. Only this time, I tossed it a little bit harder.  That damn seat better stay put this time or else! Just as before, it bounced back. I was already excited and this wasn’t helping. On my third try, I grabbed the seat and instead of just tossing it, I pushed it all the way to the tank. Yeah, that’s right, I hand carried it to where it was supposed to be. That bad boy wasn’t going to bounce back this time, No siree. And when I lifted the seat to its final resting place, I did it with force. No #$@*&%@@#* toilet seat is going to get the better of me I tell you that.

Well, you guessed it, this is where stupid comes into play. I grabbed the toilet seat and whacked it into the toilet tank. Did you know that toilets are made out of porcelain? Furthermore, did you know that porcelain is fragile and prone to breakage when some idiot smashes a toilet seat into it? At the time, neither did I. It seems so obvious now, but it didn’t then. So, using a straight right jab worthy of Chuck Liddell I smashed the toilet seat into the toilet tank. When I did the tank broke in two and fell to the floor. For an instant, the water just hung there suspended in mid air, held up only by the hand of God. It seemed like it hung there for an eternity. Now I’m just standing there with all manner of thought racing through my head. “SHIT, what am I going to do now? Wholey crap, can I get this cleaned up before Lisa sees it? Why the hell is that water just hanging there? I wonder if I can grab it and throw it in the sink before it falls to the floor.” It was beautiful really. I’m not kidding, for an instant that water just hung there. It was like Wile E Coyote when he runs off the edge of a cliff. There’s a split second of “Uh Oh” before he falls to the canyon floor. It was kind of like that. Eventually, gravity being what it is, the water hit the floor. Now this is the part I found really fascinating. Did you ever see that small silver pipe coming out of the wall behind the toilet? There’s usually a shut off valve on it and a smaller silver pipe that leads to the tank. That’s how the water for flushing gets into the tank. Did you ever notice how slowly the tank fills after you flush? Did you know that the water in that pipe is actually under pressure and that the slowness of the tank fill up is not indicative of how fast the water can come out of that pipe? Once the tank fell away there was no longer anything to impede the flow of water from the pipe. Now I’m standing in a growing pool of water, my shoes and pants are soaked , there’s porcelain toilet tank parts everywhere and there’s a stream of water shooting up from the silver pipe and it's  hitting the ceiling. And to top it all off, I haven’t done my business yet.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I heard Lisa. She was yelling again. And the yelling was getting louder and  it was getting closer. I heard her start to come up the stairs. She was on her way and she was coming fast. I knew I was toast. It didn’t matter what had preceded this event or what had just happened.  Any way you sliced it I was a dead man. I was defenseless. I resigned myself to just accepting whatever torment and torture was headed my way. What could I say? There was no defense other than….well none really.

Lisa burst into the bathroom and launched into “OH MY GOD WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!?!?!? QUICK COME DOWN TO THE KITCHEN!!!!” With that, she was off. She was FLYING back downstairs. I went flying downstairs after her. My feet didn’t touch a single tread. I grabbed the handrails and took the whole staircase in one giant leap. I went flying into the kitchen and there was Lisa doing her happy dance and pointing upwards. I looked at the ceiling and discovered a growing circle of wetness. This struck me as odd since, my bathroom is over the downstairs bathroom, not the kitchen. So I went into the downstairs bathroom. The entire ceiling was soaked. Oh my GOD!!! Will this ever end?

At this point, I’m in the downstairs bathroom and I’m yelling “holy shit, holy shit, holy shit”. As you can tell I’m one articulate fellow. I was just standing there watching the wet spot grow and yelling holy shit. All of a sudden it hit me. Lisa was standing in the doorway. I turned and started yelling “GET OUT OF THE WAY, GET OUT OF THE WAY, GET OUT OF THE WAY.” I blasted past Lisa and went screaming back up stairs. Lisa’s now yelling “WHAT”S THE MATTER? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” I didn’t answer, I was too busy racing upstairs like my hair was on fire and my ass was catching. You see, while I was standing in the downstairs bathroom gawking at the quickly growing wet spot on the ceiling wondering when it was going to stop something dawned on me. While I was standing there marveling at the calamity it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t shut off the water in my bathroom.

I got the water shut off upstairs. I cleaned up the mess in my bathroom and soaked up all the water. All the while I’m listening to a never ending string of expletives and detailed explanations as to why I am such an idiot. I believe almost every other sentence began with "What the hell is wrong with you....." When finally I was able to pause and take a breath I took inventory of the damage: the ceiling in my bathroom - ruined, the floor in my bathroom – well it was roller coasteresque, the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom - on its way to the floor (It was starting to sag), the ceiling in the kitchen - soaked but salvageable, the toilet - destroyed, the fight that preceded this catastrophe - LOST. Yeah that’s right, I ended up losing that fight. I had to give it up. How could I keep fighting after what had just happened? It didn't matter how right I was before the accident, once that tank hit the floor I was wrong, I was a goner.  And the fight that followed the great toilet tank debacle? I lost that one too.

Now my record was 0-102-0. Oh, did I forget to mention it, she even took back the tie.