Last August I thought myself an idiot when I left my wallet in my pants when I did a load of laundry.

(This actually led to a funny situation where I got pulled over, but didn’t have my registration to give to the officer, so I got a citation for “failure to hand over registration”, and y’know? I don’t think I got a replacement registration card…)

Today, I think of myself more of an idiot. See, I stopped to take the wallet out of my shorts before I threw the shorts in the laundry hamper. Then, pulling the clothes out of the washer I realized that … I left my cell phone in my shorts.

Damn I’m fucking brilliant.

Anyone have any experience with washed out cell phones? I mean, I know I’m going to go to the Cingular store first thing tomorrow and get a new phone, but can the chip that I have all of my phone numbers stores on be saved?

(Its pretty cool seeing all the water bubbles float around behind the display, though).

… when I got home from work and found a note on the building door that informed me maintenance will be inspecting the fire detector, or the furnace, or something, either tomorrow or Wednesday. Crickey, I need to clean!

I had actually sort of been hoping that “Deep Throat” really had been Pat Buchannan …

Mystery solved: Former FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped forward Tuesday as Deep Throat, the secret Washington Post source that helped bring down President Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Within hours, the paper ratified his claim.

“It’s the last secret” of the story, said Ben Bradlee, the paper’s top editor at the time the riveting political drama played out three decades ago.

It tumbled out in stages during the day — first when a lawyer quoted Felt in a magazine article as having said he was the source; then when the former FBI man’s family issued a statement hailing him as a “great American hero,” and finally when the Post posted a story on its Web site confirming him as the secret leaker of long ago.

“The family believes that my grandfather, Mark Felt Sr., is a great American hero who went well above and beyond the call of duty at much risk to himself to save his country from a horrible injustice,” a family statement read by grandson Nick Jones said. “We all sincerely hope the country will see him this way as well.”

My friend Emily had never seen Fight Club. It is, I think, a great movie that works on a variety of levels, but the underlying theme — ridding oneself of material goods — is probably the one that lands the heaviest impact. Of course, it’s also fun to snicker at Bob’s manboobs.

So, anyway, she’d never seen the movie. She was living in Arlington when I was living in Towson, and every now and then she would get up here, or I would get down there, but never ever could the time be found to watch Fight Club. Never.

About a year and a half ago she was off to Europe for a year, six months in Dublin followed by six months in London. Or vice-versa, I can’t remember. Anyway, so she was leaving in late December, and her folks threw a “going away” party. So I was out at Barnes & Noble late the night before, racking my brain, trying to figure out what to get her. I wanted to get her a book, because, really, books are great for travel — you don’t need a DVD player to watch them, you just need an eyeball (or two?).

And it occured to me to buy her a copy of Fight Club. Of course, I couldn’t think of the author’s name, so I did what any reasonably intelligent individual would do … I scanned each row of the fiction section, shelf by shelf, until I located it.*

I read the book that night, then wrapped it and gave it to her. She eventually read it, and liked it so much she did watch the movie, like a year later.

Anyway, Chuck Palahniuk has a new book coming out, which is why I thought of this, although this one sounds even more disturbing than Fight Club …

The decidedly disturbing Haunted is about a group of frustrated misfits who sign up for a three-month writing retreat. It descends into violence and sabotage as the writers, locked in an old theater, deprive themselves of food, phones and electricity, start chopping off their fingers and toes and then resort to cannibalism.

… I’m going to go and scratch “Writing Retreat” off of the list of things I might like to do some day …

* Actually, I went into the DVD/Music section, found the DVD, and looked on the back cover until I found the “Based on the book by…” credit.