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He came storming back in, blind to the phone stuck to my ear and the paint-covered shrieking child who was ready to run through the house and rub her paint-smeared self on every available surface. "There's a leak and and and it's been there since Monday and and they're just now fixing it and they didn't bother to warn anyone and and and and they're interfering with my ability to care for my child!"

To which I said, "Dude. Get a goddamn baby wipe and calm the hell down."

I mean, good grief. We survived nearly a week without electricity during 100+ degree heat. I think we'll live a few hours without water. People around the world survive without potable water for a lot longer than that. Just ask Bono. Nevermind that after July's blackout, we went into survivalist mode. B.'s been doing his part by drinking two liters of soda a day, washing the bottles, filling them with water, and stashing them in the deep freezer. Water's the one thing we don't lack. The only real problem we faced was flushing the toilet, and I've already proven my ability to improvise in that department this week.

Michelle at Weaker Vessel, which has quickly become one of my favorite reads, wrote today about late adopters, specifically regarding Last.FM. Now, I like Last.FM, but it doesn't work very well for me, since most of the music played via my computer involves either Laurie Berkner or Dan Zanes. All Last.FM does is link me to mothers who are on the verge of chewing their speaker chords in two because they've heard Laurie's Got a Pig on Her Head! one too many times.

Instead, I've become a late adopter to Pandora. I've lost approximately 97 hours of my life to Pandora this week, and I'm cool with that. Today, I was listening to my Paul Westerberg station, and I got overly excited because they played Monte Montgomery. Not just because I like both artists, and not just because it's always good to hear the much-underheard Monte getting some airplay. Mainly, I got excited because I've met both artists. Add some Joan Baez, and we'd have a station titled "Musicians Robin Has Met".

I met Joan when I was working in an art gallery. She was in town for a show, and came into the shop while I was working. She was a dream.

I met Paul by waiting at his bus after a show in 1996. I got an autographe, chatted with him for a minute, and then stood by, mortified, as my roommate gushed at him like he was the Pope.

I met Monte when I was in Memphis for my 30th birthday. A bunch of my friends and I went to Memphis to celebrate the end of my 20s. My friend M. from Dallas is a huge Monte fan, and when we learned he was playing in Memphis that weekend, she decided to join us.

Even though she'd followed him all over Texas, she'd never met him. Prior to his show, we all went to a bar where one of his pals was playing. Mind you, this is the bar where my drunk-ass friends and me managed to drink every single bottle of Rolling Rock in the joint.

My meeting with Monte entailed me skipping my drunk ass to the back of the club when I spotted Monte watching the show, and telling him, "My friend M. loves you! She's followed you all over Texas! She's followed you to St. Louis! She followed you here! And (insert slight sob here) and and you'd better go over there and say hi to her!"

And he did. Afterwards, we went outside to partake in some drunk-dialing. Then Kristina accosted a guy who looked like The Edge, and we got in trouble for talking too much during a show, thus becoming Those People We Hate.

We were delightful that night. Just lovely.

And finally, since this has unofficially become Robin's Humiliation Week and the previous story didn't make me feel quite like throwing myself off the roof in shame (Don't worry - our house is short. I wouldn't get seriously injured, just humiliated.), I'll tell you this:

Remember that story I told you way back at the beginning of this post? The one about how I busted my ankle while chasing my dog? Well, it's not entirely true, although I've always told the story that way to the point where it feels true.

The truth is, I was dancing to the Cherry Pie and I did a header over the ottoman because I was so caught up in the rapture of my dancing. Oh, and because the gods of good taste rightfully saw fight to smite me in that moment. I don't hold it against them. I needed to be smote.

Shut up. The only reason you never permanently injured yourself while dancing to Warrant is because you were too busy listening to Richard fucking Marx. Don't lie about it. You know you were.

Tomorrow? Nothing but dignity. I promise.