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July 26, 2002

I can hear the BLOOP! BLOOP! BLOOP! of the TiVo downstairs, which can only mean one thing: Andy is loose with his "Cops" Season Pass.

Do you have TiVo? It changed our lives.

We're not really big TV watchers. But how nice is it when, with 15 or 20 minutes to kill while feeding Quinn or relaxing after dinner, you can check out all the shows you've been recording and watch something you really want to see, as opposed to forcing yourself to choose between a "Home Improvement" re-run or "Entertainment Tonight."

I spent a few minutes scrolling through show titles to record yesterday, as many of the shows that I normally watch are in reruns. I went to the screen that allows you to pick programs to record.

"B-r-a-d-y-B-u-n-c-h" I typed in, and whoo hoo! I could set TiVo up to tape that fine program whenever it's on (which is what is called a "season pass").

"L-a-v-e-r-n-e-&-S-h-i-r-l-e-y" was next. Season pass it? Yes please!

How about..."E-!-T-r-u-e-H-o-l-l-y-w-o-o-d-S-t-o-r-y"? Instead of making a season pass, I selected only the shows I was interested in. (Liza Minelli? No thank you! Andy Griffith? Snore! Family Feud? Hell yes!)

Just for kicks, I typed in "F-a-c-t-s-O-f-L-i-f-e", even though I didn't think it was on anywhere these days. To my surprise, one of the options that popped up was, "Watch it now?" Watch it now??? Why yes! I don't mind if I do! So I clicked the "yes" button and I was taken to the Hallmark Channel, which offers a "FOL" twofer at 4:00 and 4:30 every day! And it was only 4:05! THANK YOU, TIVO!! THANK YOU!

When I went away to college in 1987, my sister Peggy gave Colleen and I a big square of peach-colored carpeting to put on the floor of our dorm room. She had leftovers from redoing her bedroom or living room or something, and felt sorry for me and my cold dogs, I guess. The carpeting was very nice, and it fit in our room perfectly.

I'm not going to mince words here. Bad things happened on that carpeting.

Get your mind out of the gutter! Not THOSE kinds of bad things! But bodily things. Oh yes. Bodily things.

Anyone in my family who is going to yell at me for writing about this can leave now, please.

One of my friends from high school came up to see us one weekend, bringing with her a friend who I didn't really know that well. (Joe--should I name her? Think this would harm her political career? Is she still in Romania?) So for fun, Colleen and I took my friend, who I'll call Sara, and this girl, who I'll call Kristine, to a frat party because we were cool freshmen and we had nothing else to do with them. Sara and Kristine were high school juniors, by the way. A frat party sounded pretty good to them.

Kristine drank a lot of beer at the Sig Pi house. A LOT of beer. When I found her in a corner of the basement licking some guy's face, I decided we needed to leave. The walk home was long and painful, as Kristine kept falling down. Out of nowhere. Just falling down. We put Kristine and Sara to sleep on our floor (where they were cushioned by the lovely carpeting) in their sleeping bags.

A few hours later, Colleen and I were awakened by Sara, who was hissing at Kristine.

"Stop it! Oh my God! What are you DOING? Stop it!"

We squinted down at the floor, and were a little horrified to see that Kristine was over near Colleen's desk, squatting and...well, yes, she was urinating. ON OUR CARPETING! Because she thought she was in the BATHROOM!

"KRISTINE!!! CUT IT OUT!!!!!" Colleen roared, and Kristine kind of grunted at her, then walked back to her sleeping bag, unzipped it, squatted again, and finished up. FINISHED PEEING, THAT IS! Then she pulled her pants back up, climbed in the sleeping bag, and WENT BACK TO SLEEP.

Oh my God!

And do you know who had to clean it up? Did Colleen invite either of these two girls into our room, to stain and to soil? No! No she didn't! It was me! Me who brought them in, and me who had to clean them up! I've been sitting here for a good ten minutes trying to remember if these two woke up the next morning and took off immediately, or if they stayed to watch me mop up the mess. I really can't remember. I'm guessing it was the former, though.

I mean, what would YOU do?

I was at the Gambler, our local bar, the night before Thanksgiving a few years ago, and I saw Kristine there. In a saucy little scarf. And a perky little haircut. With her little political career in Washington D.C. And I could only think...

YOU PEED IN YOUR OWN SLEEPING BAG!

Anyway.

So that was one crime committed against the peach colored carpeting.

The next took place when I invited another set of friends from high school to visit us. I will call them Kelly and Tara. Again, they were high school juniors. Again, Colleen and I took them to a frat party. Again, there was sorrow and sickness when they overindulged. Again, Colleen and I put them to bed in sleeping bags on our (still peach, slightly smelly) carpeted floor.

But before Colleen and I could do anything else, Kelly was up. Up and running back and forth across the room with a dangerous look in her eye. Just as I was going to shove her out the door and to the bathroom, she puked. All over the floor. In front of Colleen's desk!

"Why do all of your friends have to mess up MY SIDE OF THE ROOM?" Colleen shrieked at me.

Kelly took off for the bathroom.

Tara continued to sleep.

I went for the bucket and soap, because...

Colleen was leaving to go camp out for George Michael concert tickets. I wish I could say I'm making that up, but sadly...I'm not.

So I cleaned everything up (grosser!) and got Kelly back into her sleeping bag and wished Colleen luck in securing us awesome seats for the "Faith" tour. (Eleventh row! Suh-weet!)

Someone gave us some markers one day a few months later, and Colleen and I decided to decorate our carpeting. We drew a gigantic banana all down the center of the room, as our friend Anne (aka "Banana") spent the night on that spot almost every evening. I drew a toilet over near Colleen's desk so that future visitors would have no doubt about where to go should they need to soil themselves in any way. I don't remember what else we drew, but I know that we had a very happy evening stinking the place up with marker fumes and laughing like loons.

Shortly after this incident, I received a phone call from my sister Peggy. She chatted with me for awhile before remembering her gift.

"Hey," she said, "I was just thinking about that carpeting. I was wondering...do you guys make sure you take off your shoes before you walk on it?"