Ya had to know I was not going to leave this one alone. It just took me a bit to post because I had to calm down. This little ditty starts with a call from the Old Boy to me at work (a couple of weeks ago, yes it took that long) breaking the news that his entire shift of workmates were coming to our house before they head off to the nearest drinking establishment for their Christmas “thing”. Hmmmm. Well, those of you who know me well could just imagine my next reaction. I laughed. Seriously. Then I said “better get in your truck and hussle your ass home to clean up the place before they all arrive”. (That comment was mostly said because I had a funny feeling Mr. Party-Time was sitting in a room full of men making the call to his “little woman” and he was manning up a bit.) Man up all right. I am tempted to leave embarrassing items around the house and then have to take the kids out grocery shopping or for shots at the doctor or something. See how he likes that.
Those people mentioned above who know me well probably have already thought to themselves: crazy chick most likely ran home and cleaned up the house. Yes, you know it. They may be a batch of barbarians but I certainly don’t need them to have to walk over the three feet high cat hair tumbleweeds in the hallway on the way to the bathroom with unidentified substances on the toilet and teenager toothpaste globs everywhere (why oh why can’t they get the toothpaste down the drain?).
So, on my drive home I wonder do I get beer? Will they stay longer if I do? Going to have to have a discussion with the old fella about this obvious lack of warning! Does he not know that us women need more than six hours notice before having people over? I mean really, how am I going to lose 10 pounds and get my hair colored in six hours! This is bordering on an emergency. In my crazy head I think: Can I get all the decorations out of the crawl space and up in two hours? Strike that. Not even Martha Stewart could pull that off. I’m now wishing I still had my maid of honor dress from a friends wedding from about a hundred years ago – remember TEAL? I would totally put that sucker on and make a grand entrance (yes, I am back to thoughts of embarrassing him in front of “the men” – these are truly happy thoughts that reduce my stress).
Here’s the skinny: Pick up a kid at school, tell him his dad invited everyone over to our house and I will not be able to feed or tend to any of his needs until I have cleaned the house, so figure it out on your own. I then proceed to run around the house like a crazy mad women for two solid hours. Clean, hide stuff in closets, do my hair to the best of my ability, tell the cats to stop shedding or I will put them in a kennel, forever. After what seemed like eight hours, I’m done! Pour myself a tiny (figure of speech) glass of wine to congratulate myself for a job well done (then realize that I have not seen the youngest child for quite some time and I better make sure he is not repainting his room with felt pen or using hockey tape to tape the cats tail to his back legs.) Phone rings – don’t panic, I am expecting the call. This is the conversation I am expecting: “Hey, just on my way home. I will pick up beer. Everyone should be there in an hour or so”. That was NOT the call I got. This is how it went: “Hey, we all had to ‘work’ late and we are just going to head right to the drinking establishment. I’m just gonna run in and change and then head out.” I am pretty sure all I could get out was: “Huh. Ok.” I hang up the phone and look around. What just happened? Oh dear. Sooooo I walk around the now clean house and think up new, amazing ways to punish the Old Boy. To add insult to injury the man comes home, changes and gets ME to drive him to his “party”. I’m pretty sure he made certain his credit card was locked away before he left. After I put the starving, youngest child to bed, I sit in front of the tv, drink whats left of the bottle of wine, admire my super fast cleaning abilities and realize something truly amazing: I am sitting here by myself with my new friend Jackson Triggs (yes, I realize that's a contradiction) watching tv, reading a book during the commercials in a clean house and no one is there to bug me. Does it get any better than this?
(Just an aside: not sure still if Mr. Party realized the house was clean but for a few days following that evening he would open cupboards and closet doors and I would hear him say “what the heck is this doing in here?” Well, what does he expect?)
