And that's why we won't be going to any poker tournaments anytime soon.

Our friends Chuck and Janie recently invited us to an invitational poker tournament.  Chuck and Janie don't mess around -- they had green felt tables, real chips, and drafted 25 or so "rules of the game" about betting, table etiquette, buying back in, etc.

My husband is, by all accounts, a pretty smart guy.  Aside from being an engineer, he's one of those freaks who can do advanced calculus in his head.  So he had no trouble keeping pace with the game.  To keep himself from getting bored, he decided to drink a fifth of bourbon.

My husband is, to put it kindly, a sloppy drunk.  He doesn't drink so often that this is a real problem, but when it is, boy is it. By the first break, Sweetums was well lubricated.  Aside from being loud and spraying everyone in a 2 foot radius, he systematically broke as many of the rules as he could remember (such as "splashing the pot" and speculating aloud about other players hands). Despite his drunken state, Sweetums managed to stay in the game until the bitter end, losing to Chuck in the final hand.  As such, he took home the 2nd place prize -- $100. And an award for "Most Obnoxious Player of the Game" (OK, I made that up, but I'm sure others were thinking it).

One of the many things that Sweetums and I have in common is that we're both pukers.  I knew that it would be a long night, so I took the last couple of Tylenol and left the empty bottle on the sink. 

The vomiting started around 1:00 a.m.  In his first lurch to the toilet, Sweetums knocked the Tylenol into the potty, which he subsequently flushed (he apparently did not notice the bottle floating atop his puke).  During the second round (at 2:00 a.m.), said bottle backed up the toilet so that it flowed all over our bathroom, dripping through the floor and into the basement.  After cleaning that up for an hour, we went back to bed for about twenty minutes before round three hit. 

At this point Sweetums realized the toilet was not working, went out into the hall, became disoriented, went into Doodle-bug's room, kneeled over my Grandmother's antique rocking chair and vomited everywhere.  Fortunately, the kids were at our in-laws and baby girl didn't have to witness this ordeal --  the sight of her half naked, completely drunk father barfing on her head might have scarred her for life.

The next day, we dismantled the toilet to find the Tylenol bottle stubbornly wedged in the bottom.  No amount of snakes, wire hangers, or probing was going to dislodge this sucker.  After several hours, we gave up and went to Home Depot.  We had to buy a new toilet.

So if you take Sweetums' winnings, deduct the buy-in and the cost of a new toilet, we are now in the hole about $180.  For the sake of our marriage, I think we might decline the next invitation to a poker tournament.