My story starts out the same as many other New Orleanians, a hastily decided evacuation on a Saturday night while sitting at a bar in Bucktown staring at the weather channel. The choice was made that myself, wife, and our four cats would go spend a couple of nights in Houston at a pet friendly hotel that we had booked the week before. After packing the truck in about a half an hour, we drugged our cats with kitty valium purchased from the vet the previous week and hit the road for a little \"vacation\" from the city of New Orleans. Well, our \"vacation\" turned into an all out alcohol binge as the days ticked by with no certainty of what our future was, no idea of what was left of our beloved city and home, and no idea of the whereabouts of our friends and family.\r\n One may ask, \"Where does Joe Horn fall into this?\", and here is the answer. In December of 2003, Joe Horn, a beloved wide receiver for the New Orleans Saints, scored another touchdown during a game, and proceeded to pull a cell phone from underneath the goalpost padding to celebrate. This sort of made him a folk-hero in the eyes of many Saints fans. At some point in time in the Superdome during the 2004 season, I handed \"Hollywood\" Joe my cellphone so that he would sign it, and he did. Well... in September of 2005, I was in a dive bar in Houston attempting to celebrate my birthday with a group of friends that we had run into over the course of a few weeks. We were all close and doing the only thing that we knew to do at a time of little hope, watching the Saints lose another game in a season that had about as much hope as the entire city of New Orleans did. I do not remember the score of the game, and I certainly do not remember how much our tab was, but I can assure you, everyone in that bar knew that we were from New Orleans. While we were attempting to walk home from the bar around 2 AM, I saw a levee that I told my friends that I was going to run up to see what was on the other side. (Insert drunken laughter here) Obviously in my annebriated state, I failed to realize that there are sewerage drainage canals before these levees in Houston. There I was, swimming for my life in a sewerage pond in Houston. I don\'t know exactly what was in that foul water, but it ate the ink off of my phone and the \"Joe Horn #87\" was never to be seen again. So if I ever see Hollywood Joe again, I will ask him to sign my phone in waterproof ink.\r\n