Welcome back to, in all seriousness, what will become a recurring theme on this blog... That Stupid Thing I Did!

In our first installment, I retold the tale of how I locked my keys into my apartment then couldn't get in for an entire weekend. Well, number two happened last night.

I'm a tea drinker. I drink a lot of it. Every night, I fill up my snazzy tea kettle, get the water going to nice boil, pour it into one of my French presses and add some of that awesome Belgium loose tea. Every stinking night I do it! Makes three cups. It's awesome... Heck, I even did it this past weekend on a night when Eric and I both blacked out. Apparently, I've done it enough times, I can actually do it in my sleep.

Last night, I go through the routine. I pour the water in the kettle. Turn the stove on high, throw the kettle on and wait for the water to boil. Now, I do actually leave the kitchen at this time. I'm a busy boy. I've got things I need to take care of. Last night was no exception. I left the kitchen to go save the world (Note: I didn't actually save the world. I just can't remember what I was doing.) A few minutes go by, kettle is steaming nicely and making it's usual "heating up" noises. But something's wrong. It's starting to smell... like... SMOKE! I think to myself, "what is that?" and carry on with what I was doing. 5 seconds later I realize it's from my apartment and it's *cough* effing *cough* smo-- *cough* --key in here. With all the urgency of Michael Jackson leaving a courtroom, I casually amble over to the stove and... HOLY SHIT! IT'S ON FIRE! WTF?!

Now, this wasn't some small, put out with your shoes fire. This was a full blown, "someone get the fire extinguisher" fire. I'm talking level 3. Flames about a two feet high. "How the hell did I set my tea kettle on fire?!" Then I saw it.

A dishrag.

I left a dishrag underneath the effing tea kettle... and it lit itself on fire. You have got to be kidding me. I grab the dishrag, the three square inches that weren't on fire, and threw it into the sink. Thank the lord for those mini hoses off the the side and douse this fire until it's totally gone. Now it's bad. I feel like an idiot. It stinks in my apartment and it's smokey as hell in here. Plus, the dishrag was one of my new ones! I just bought the thing at Target!

So I open up the patio door as far as it'll go and freeze for the next 45 minutes trying to air this place out. Luckily it did and there was only one causality - a brave dishrag that went down fighting.

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I'm usually pretty good about ordering things online. I check and recheck just to be safe that all my information is there. But today, while finishing up my Christmas shopping from Amazon I was trying to multitask, talking with my sister and ordering at the same time. Just as I hung up the phone, I forgot where I was checkout process and hit the "Place Order" button - which anyone who has gotten anything from Amazon knows you push about 3 times in the process. The problem arose when it was the LAST button and I hadn't changed the shipping address.

So I freaked.

Hurriedly, I logged in and changed the address on one order. Phew! Everything was going to be fine. I log into the other order to do the same but there's no change shipping address button for me to press! I immediately go to the help pages of the site - I did this once before when ordering from Tiffany's. I called them up and they changed it right then - so I figured I could do the same for Amazon. After searching the section for 20 minutes, I realized I was wrong. There is no 800 number to call... anywhere!

So I Googled it and found this page. Thank you! I called the service line and after the repeated "Check the Help section of our site" warnings, and a 15 minute wait, I got an actual human on the phone and my problem was fixed in 4 minutes.

So I did something stupid this morning.

As I'm walking out of my apartment I usually do a normal rundown "Keys, wallet, ipod, phone. Check!" Everytime before I close the door to my apartment I say that to myself and MAKE SURE I touch all four items so I know if I missed anything.

This morning, however, I had an added obsacle. I'm headed to Michigan this evening for a wedding tomorrow. So the rundown should've been "Keys, wallet, ipod, phone, luggage. Check!" right? Not all too complicated.

So how did the rundown go? "I think I'm going to leave my computer on so when I get back home on Sunday I will finally have the 22-20's cd on my compter. SLAM!" Afterwards, I did the proper rundown, "Keys... SHIT!" Just like that, I realized my keys were still sitting in my apartment while I was still sitting outside my apartment, a locked door between me and them.

I kindly ask my neighbor who our building "helper" is with the skelton key, head down to his apartment, Matt in T9, knock. Nothing. Knock harder. Nothing. Knoch harder and longer. Nothing. He's obviously not there. So I call my landlord. It goes something like this:

Me: "Hey Tim, it's Addam Wassel."
Tim: "Oh, hi Addam."
Me: "How are you doing?"
Tim: "I'm in France. Why are you calling me?"
Me: "Ohhh. Well I locked my keys in my apartment but YOU'RE IN FRANCE and Matt isn't there. I'm screwed."
Tim: "Yep, pretty much."
Me: "Ok, thanks. Have fun in France."

Well, it went something like that. So I call Alexis, luckily I gave her a spare set of keys to my place... you know, in case I'm headed to Michigan the exact day I locked myself out of my apartment. She suggests giving her set to me and just walking to work. And so I did. And here I am.

As I sit here, key deprived at the moment, let me suggest to you one thing: Put a spare set of keys in your office desk drawer. That way, this cannot happen to you. I'm going to go cry...