My boss and I were in the conference room today going over a presentation we're putting together for the district staff and about the time we started wrapping up my former boss walked in and stepped over to the flipchart. He wrote my name and stood there for a second as we looked on. It looked a little something like this.

Fearing what I expected would happen next, I was pleasantly surprised when he stepped away from the flipchart and revealed what he added:

Starting to like where this was going, and being the humble person that I am, I chimed in with the next one - to which he added the "over":

The game continues ...

... keep in mind, engineers are not always known for the creativity (or their humility, I came up with this one too) ...

... yeah, and this one too ...

And then out of nowhere my former boss - with the perfect comedic timing that he's exhibited many times in the past - ends with the most classic of impromptu office evaluations ...

It was truly one of those moments when no one knew (including the man with the marker) where the whole thing was going and then it ended up at the only place it possibly could. Definitely a classic. It's great to know that I'm appreciated.

Being the worrier that I am, I couldn't get to sleep with my plumbing on the fritz, so I got myself up and drove to Wal-Mart at 11:00 p.m. Not good. Gots to be up by 2:30 a.m.

It didn't strike me until I walked through the doors and into the bright lights of the Wally World store that, upon retrieving my anti-clogging contraption, I would then be walking around and standing in a check-out line at Wal-Mart with nothing more than a plunger ... during the final hour before midnight. "Take that," I say to the imaginary man standing next to me with a pack of toilet paper, "at least you could've used an old bath towel". "This is exactly what 24-hour discount stores were made for," we think to ourselves in unison.

And as if it wasn't enough to be stepping into the bright lights of Wal-Mart for a plunger, the darkness offered this warm greeting upon my return to the car ...

"I know you wear cologne, " screeches an unfamiliar voice beside a bumperless SUV.

"I'm sorry ???" I ask, as if to excuse myself for not understanding her inappropriate remarks about my hygiene.

"You wear cologne, don't you?"

"Actually, no, I gave up cologne a couple of years ago. That's right, I'm 2 years stinky." I wished I had said. "Uhh no. No thank you," I replied out loud as I closed my car door and slowly sped away.

So that was a series of challenging, unfortunate circumstances but it was all worth it to be able to get home, fix the toilet, blog about it, and rest peacefully. And that's where I am now, home, having arrived to a toilet that fixed itself during the 15 minutes that I was gone, blogging about it, and (hopefully) soon to be dreaming about anything other than tubes or plumbing or misguided senators or internets. C'est la vie!

A clogged toilet without a pluger is frustrating enough. But it's even more frustrating when you're not the one who clogged the toilet. (And just to save face for my roommate, he has his own bathroom, so it wasn't him who clogged my toilet. In fact, throw out whatever assumptions you may have about who it was because you probably don't know him.)

Darn it, where are those lottery balls and racing horses when you need them?

Okay, so my whole "don't eat out for a month" plan lasted all of one day and then I proceeded to eat out 3 out of the next 6 meals (lunch and dinner). I've been known to set goals for myself that required a change in habits taking me from one extreme to the other (or "cold turkey" as some may call it). Psychologists call this "setting yourself up for failure", I believe.

Nevertheless, I need to at least reduce my eating out addiction to a manageable level. Every month, I create a budget that basically gives me a "per diem" that I can spend and stay financially healthy. Generally this budget is extremely conservative and I end up blowing the per diem out of the water. Fortunately, due to the conservative and extreme nature of my budget I'm still able to stay relatively financially healthy. Well this month, I'm going to try my darndest to stay within the conservative budget. That way I'm able to enjoy the social aspect of eating out and still maintain some fiscal responsibility.