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!