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Monday, April 03, 2006

Arrival of the champion

Yesterday morning I had to get up at what felt like 6:30am because I had agreed to participate in my brother's fantasy baseball league and he scheduled the online draft at 8am PST (11am EST) on the day of "spring forward." He said it would take about three hours and it took almost five. I was tired of sitting.

I am a person who like to buy things. Honey: "she's a consumer, she's a consumer, she likes to buy things, she likes to buy things" sung vaguely to the tune of "I'm a Survivor" by Destiny's Child. This league requires bidding on players. It's like ebay, only faster and in theory. It made me nervous because the amounts seemed to be 10x what they actually were. I had weird thoughts about the things I could do with $38 instead of bidding on Pedro Martinez. I reminded myself that I was really bidding $3.80 and that I had already paid my $46 to do this thing in the first place. Proving my consumer cred, by the time I had 16 or 17 of the 23 players I needed, I was down to the minimum bid, which meant I hate to wait for it to be my turn, pick a player and then hope no one over bid the $1 (really .10) at which I had to start (and end because I was out of money) the bidding. Thus I ended up with two players who are out for the season. Since I don't read the local papers in all the National League markets, I was unaware of how badly hurt they were. And don't get me started on the .80 I spent on the Rockies catcher who just went on the DL.

I'm at home Monday morning because the really nice plumber could come install the "champion" toilet this morning. I ran over to Lowes and bought the champion. Did you know that toilets don't come with seats? That seems wrong to me, but whatever. I mean, you drop $250 (give or take) before installation on the toilet bowl and tank and the seat isn't included. I'm going to call up Mr. American or Mr. Standard and tell them what I think. I bought a seat. Just so you know. I can't wait until all toilets in the house do what toilets are supposed to do.

Honey and I imagined a conversation with the lame toilet that was taken away by the nice plumber a minute ago. We thought it might tell us about outhouses and how evolved it was over them. We had three toilets: the one that works, the one that only accepts liquid, and the one in the cat bathroom that we don't use and ran all the time until I tied its chain up so it stopped being a toilet in any meaningful way. And we thought that our current functioning toilet might get jealous of the new one. Now we should have three toilets that do what they're supposed to do. Maybe I'll buy them all seat covers. To celebrate.

I want a trophy for playing in the fantasy league and I want a trophy for the new toilet. Provided, that is, that it does what it's supposed to do. It better.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

As you know, my mother's toilet seat is the most advanced one in our house: it's heated, it squirts at you, then it gently blow dries you. It is a heartbeat away from sentience.

sporksforall said...

Your mother's toilet seat frightens me. In the same way that TiVo's thinking feature does. Give me dumb in appliances.

bryduck said...

Yeah, I'm with you on that one, sporks. Yikes! My favorite feature of toilets, and one with which I'm going to assume guys are more familiar with, is that they have differently shaped bowls. See, some have a distinctly roundish shape and others a wonderful oval shape that is more convenient for those males of the species whose bodies are larger than 5'5" and 75 lbs. The oval used to be the standard, I believe, but since it probably costs more to manufacture, round ones are becoming more prevalent, to my consternation. You can still get the good ones, but they cost more. Another example of big business making choices for us that aren't in our interests but theirs . . .

sporksforall said...

The champion is oval. It's also high. And it is a vigorous flusher. I heart the champion.

Teresa said...

Bryduck is hereby given permission to use the Champion whenever he comes over, even though it's in the master bedroom. I had no idea ovals were so coveted.

The Champion features a whole different flushing technology; it seems to sort of inhale at the initiation of the flush, then unleashes its considerable power whilst still using the minimum of water. It's a great time to be alive.