Spam e-mail saves owners' and pet's lives

Dave's been a really good sport about the whole homeowner responsibilities thing.

He's fixed a leaky spray hose in the sink. He's stopped a toilet from running all night. He takes out the trash.

But I interrupt this domestic bliss with this: I'm often paranoid and convinced that the worst thing may always happen -- and this is just who I am and he knew it when he married me. I was convinced that a third fire incident was going to take place (catch up: microwave popcorn fiasco and the burning table episode). You see, having been raised Catholic, everything comes in threes. It's just how we roll.

And when I'm tired, I'm known to believe that every possible bad thing is going to happen: floods, hurricanes, the apocalypse ... that sort of thing.

So when a friend sent me one of those "My best friend's neighbor knows this woman who died while doing ..." something e-mails, my normally jaded self was sure that IT WAS A SIGN. Yes, our dryer lint tube thingy would too spontaneously combust. Of course! And wasn't that in Dear Heloise a few weeks ago? OH my GOD, I thought, I will go down sitting on the couch with our dog, watching bad TV dramas. Everyone will know I watch "Friday Night Lights." Oh no.

So I came home from work and started fretting one day last week. I cleaned out the lint trap, like always, but it wasn't good enough. Someone was going to have to take a few boards off the side of the deck and crawl under to clean out the dryer vent.

And that someone had to be Dave, because it's not yet 30 degrees and God only knows what lives under there.

He said "when it gets warmer." He said "it's fine." He said "ERIN, you're being paranoid," and even though he was right, I said "But what IF?" And I was so right that it got silent, and all we heard was the dryer, ticking away its last moments before it was doomed to explode.

That's when he took ... um, whatever tools you need to take off a few boards and put them back on, and crawled underneath. And that's how we didn't get blown up by dryer lint. I have to admit ... I feel better. Now I can worry about something else.