One of the things that is hard to do is to avoid the temptation of kicking someone you don’t like when they’re down. It’s hard. It takes a big man.

Fortunately, nobody around here is that big.

If you’re like me (and really, aren’t you glad you aren’t) you were watching ESPN on Sunday night, saw on the crawl, “ESPN NFL analyst Michael Irvin arrested in Texas for possession of drug paraphenalia” and you laughed until you fell off the couch.

In fact the next thing you saw on the crawl was, “Desipio.com writer Andy Dolan injured in convulsive fall from couch.”

Just because I never liked Michael Irvin (not at Miami, not with the Cowboys, not in his many fur-wearing appearances in Texas courthouses, not on Fox and certainly not on ESPN) doesn’t mean I relish in him and a crack pipe being scrutinized in the media.

In case you haven’t noticed, if it wasn’t for Michael Irvin, Terrell Owens would still have a job. It was Irvin who brought up the ridiculous “If Brett Favre was the Eagles quarterback, they’d be undefeated” idea that TO decided to get behind right before his behind got kicked out of the door in Philly.

Irvin says lots of dumb things. Here’s a secret, the reason he says lots of stupid thing is because he, himself is stupid. He’s probably no dumber than Terry Bradshaw or Lisa Guerrero, but he’s stupid.

That wasn’t even the best of it. On Monday I happened to be in the car when he made an ill-fated appearance on the Dan Patrick Show. So I got to hear the whole thing.

Patrick, to his credit, called him on his tale of what happened. Patrick recounted that his father’s battle with alcoholism made Dan all-too familiar with how well addictive personalities can lie and convince you (and themselves) that they’re not full of bullshit.

Irvin’s story was so ludicrous it was actually funny. He claims that a “friend” is battling an addiction to crack (just like Irvin did) and that Michael has been trying to get him to go to rehab. Michael says that last week this “friend” went into rehab and that last Monday night, Michael got a call from the facility that the “friend” had left. When Michael got back to Texas he decided to become more hands on about the whole thing. When the “friend” showed up for Thanksgiving (because, as the guys at Deadspin pointed out there’s no better way to shield your kids from the ills of drug use than to invite the crackhead to Thanksgiving dinner at your house), Michael patted the friend down and found a pipe.

Michael didn’t want the pipe in his house. So what did he do? Did he throw it away? Did he take it to the drive way and stomp it into lots of tiny bits (like Keith Olbermann wondered)? Did he hide it in the garage?

No, Michael went to his car and hid the pipe under the driver’s seat. Because, you know, that’s the best place for a pipe. Michael says he didn’t throw it away because people “go through my garbage”. You know, the Feds. And he put it in the car so that on Friday he could drive to a grocery store and throw it in their dumpster.

Then everybody sat down at the Irvin’s for a crack-and-weed-free Thanksgiving, just like the ones you and I had.

The next day Michael was going to get up early and go to the Piggly Wiggly and toss the pipe. But he overslept. He and his wife are building a new house and she wanted to go furniture shopping. You know how those pesky wives are.

Here’s where the story gets good. Michael Irvin cannot say the word “furniture.” He pronounces it frun-iture, like the r is in front of the u. He must have said frun-iture ten times yesterday. Hilarious, every time.

So he and the Misses are on their way to the frun-iture store when the playmaker gets pulled over for going 70 in a 55. The cop rolls up to the window and says, “Hey! Aren’t you former Dallas Cowboy star and crack smoker, Michael Irvin?”

OK, he didn’t say that. What he did say, after running the playmaker’s license was that Irvin has a warrant for his arrest because the playmaker got another speeding ticket and didn’t pay it.

Irvin claims he did pay the ticket, and just his bad luck, there’s a mixup down at the Sherriff’s Department. Ain’t that always the way?

The cop tells Michael it’s no big deal, he’ll just toss Michael in the squad car, take him downtown, he can pay the outstanding ticket and the new one and be on his happy frun-iture shopping way.

But first, he needs to search the car. Because, you know, he can. Under the driver’s seat he finds a pipe, and it even has a little marijuana left in it! What do you know? Darn the luck. Michael had that one-hitter in his car for about 20 hours and as it just so happened in those 20 hours he got pulled over, had the bad luck of a clerical error at the Sherriff’s Department and a car search. What are the odds? Poor Michael.

Michael then told Dan Patrick that the cop told him that since they were going downtown anyway, he can just pay the $250 fine for the misdemeanor “pipe with a little weed still in it” and Michael can be on his merry way frun-iture shopping. No big deal. Apparently, nothing’s a big deal in Texas anymore.

So Michael goes downtown, pays his fines and drives away (extensibly to go frun-iture shopping).

Two days pass, as, convieniently does Michael’s appearance on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown and then word of Michael’s arrest comes out.

So now ESPN and Michael are on the defensive. Michael goes on Patrick’s show and tells this sordid tale. He seems to believe it, even if nobody else does. He keeps talking about how he’s helping his “friend” and then starts referring to him as his “brother” and realizes he’s just outed his brother as the crack addict he’s trying to help, so now he’s talking about helping “both” even though both are just one.

Patrick never asks why a crack-addicted guy’s pipe would only have marijuana in it.

Patrick asks Michael if he’s going to take a drug test, since he’ll pass it and that will clear his name. Michael at first pretends not to hear the questions and goes back to talking about frun-iture. Then Patrick repeats it and Michael says he’s going to take the test after he talks to his lawyer and finds out if it’s legal. Because, after all after two and a half days of consulting with his lawyer, this question has apparently never come up.

Obviously I don’t know if Irvin is lying or not. The story smells like it’s been written in bullshit on bullshit. It’s not like Michael’s ever lost a TV gig because he got busted for drugs.

Oh, wait.