911? Yes I need a Hazmat team to come immediately....

What have I done....sigh...."oh sure! come on over! We'd love to have you over for cards!" And if this wasn't enough to want me to stuff an over-sized pillow in my mouth, I have to add, "How about dinner? James would LOVE to fix a meal that consists of some kind of chicken that has 2,408 ingredients along with all the fixin's!" What? What did I just say? Surely I didn't just invite people over to my house. No, no I didn't, I am just having a random nightmare and I will wake up soon and laugh it off. Whew, that was a close one. Now wake up Kelley.....uh oh......here my mouth goes again..."How about 7?" 7? What?? 7 years? That might give me enough time to clean the bathroom! I glance over at James, sitting on the couch after mowing all afternoon, only to see sheer panic written all over his face. OOOOOOOOHH NOOOOOOOOOOO........I am clamping both of my hands over my mouth praying silently....please, please, let them say "We'd love to but we both have hip surgery tomorrow at 6 a.m. and can't make it, but thanks for the invite...maybe in 2024?" Nope, no such luck..."We'd love to! What can we bring?" How about Hazmat suits?? Yeah, that would be what I would bring to my house if my immune system was not fully intact. Okay, no reason to panic, James has two full tanks of gasoline in his truck, how much time can it take to suck it out, pour it all around the perimeter of our house and light a match? POOF! Better than Merry Maids any day, I say.

For those of you that have never been invited to our house, there is a really good reason and just be thankful. We have a certain couple, R and P (no names, only initials) over twice a year, once on New Years Eve and at least one other time per year for cards. We figure this way, we will actually clean our house twice a year and that should keep the health department from closing us down. We have actually been putting off R and P for our bi-annual for months now with the excuse of the house is such a mess because we are redecorating...aka still blow torching the stains out of the toilet. ugh.

Our house really isn't "dirty", it's just...well let's say.....cluttered. Cluttered to the point of "World of Stuff". We have so much crap, that just last week I saw a family of packrats moving out of our house complaining that there just weren't enough of them to keep up with all the work. I felt really sorry for them, they looked so overworked, hunched tiny backs, little dark circles....oh well.

Yes, that was me about one hour ago. Really, put some red lipstick on this mouth, open it and there you go...instant bowling alley! ARRRRRRRRGGGGGH! Am I just stupid or is it complete insanity? I am pleading insanity for sure! That might get me a nice room at the "spa" for a few months if I am lucky.

Okay so back to panic. I assess what needs to be done the most. Assessment, everything. MAAAAAN! Okay, I send my husband one direction, I head the other. I plead with him to go get the vacuum out of the bedroom, I dash out to my car, readying for a quick get away only to realize I have forgotten my keys. He is at the door looking at me like a child being left at an orphanage when I unwillingly come back in mumbling something about I thought I saw a bear....blah, blah, blah. Ok, time to face the music (what does that mean?), I figure my first plan of attack is on the ever-growing amount of stuff on the dining room table has to be hidden somewhere, and fast! The clock is echoing every tick tock so loudly that I am wondering if it is my own heart beat or what? I quickly grab a stack of Walmart plastic bags, and start scraping mountains off the table. I figure that I can stack these bags on one of our couches and say "I am almost finished Christmas shopping but geesh, now I have to wrap all that stuff! I take a quick glance at the clock and wonder the odds of our guests having a flat tire on the way here....doubt overwhelms me, so I run in to the bathroom to dump some toilet cleaner in and then back to the kitchen. WHOOOOOOOOOOOA.........who broke in and messed up my kitchen so bad and why didn't they take anything???! Stuff in the dishwasher....dirty, stuff in both sinks, dirty, stuff all over the counter tops, dirty. NOOOOOOOO...where am I supposed to hide all this stuff? Trashcans....full. Back porch? The dogs would have a heyday! But can I really put all this stuff out on the back porch? Bugs? Crap. I have to wash all this by hand. Second glance at the clock....I call friend "T" and explain that the recipe takes longer than expected, can we change the time for one half hour later? Sure.........aaaaaaaah, I got a stay from the courts! So wash, wash, wash and wash some more. A quick drive over the big stuff on the floor with the vacuum and a few swipes with the mop, now I need a shower! I toss my shoes off, then remembering the company, pick them up when I hear....hear....what is that noise? It is irritating, I have heard it before...what is that? I know that I know that noise but just can't quite put my finger on it...it is grinding on my nerves, I can't figure out what it is, but I do know what room it is coming from...it's not fingernails on a chalk board, it's not that always annoying drip from the faucet, it's not one of the dogs puking up a wet sock....no....it's....WHAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!!-----It's football! FOOTBALL?!?!!!! I run into the living room and see my, what might be---soon to be ex-husband sitting on the couch watching football????!?!?!!! Oh no, I don't think so buddy, not unless you can show me your union card, your break is officially over! Oops, I suddenly remember that he is the one cooking so I can't even give him the evil eye, little alone yell at him! Am I going to cry? No, chin up Kelley, time to get in the shower. I realize that I haven't shaved my legs for a few days but do I really have time for that too? The only clean clothing that I have are shorts. Great. Then it dawns on me...we have invited T and N over (again, initials) and I know that T shaves more irregularly than I, so as long as we don't sit close to each other, we won't risk the chance of getting tangled up with each other. Grossssssssss. "NEXXXXXXXXXT" time for James to shower. I will finish the apple fritters while he showers. Glance at the clock (why do I do that?) it's crunch time for sure! I put all the fritters out on paper towels, run over to the freezer to get out the powered sugar to sprinkle on them, grab a spoon and start shoveling powdered sugar all over them. Note to everyone...don't wear navy blue when having a small argument with powdered sugar. Uh....is that powdered sugar or did I accidentally grab the flour? Where's my car keys? How many credit cards are in my purse and how long can I live abroad with them? I dab my finger, bring it up to my lips....please, pleeeeeease let this be sugar. Yep, whew! That was a close one! Timer is going off for the chicken, other stuff in microwave, set table, okay, I am ready. It is 7:28, two minutes to spare. I haven't mopped the kitchen but I can quickly take a few lightbulbs out of the fixtures and viola! Ambiance! Floor doesn't look too bad this way, maybe I should go around the house and take other bulbs out and claim that we are so "green" that we just don't believe in lighting anymore because we don't want to leave a "footprint". Man, that is a good idea! We don't clean with harmful substances because of the "footprint", we don't do anything because we don't want to leave our "footprint"....this is great! Who says it's not easy being "green"? This is the best thing since being laid off! I have an excuse for everything now! Kermit move over....I am now the new "green" spokesperson!!

Suddenly the phone rings....T tells me they are going to be late. Are you kidding?! Oh I don't think so, dinner is on the table, James and I are both clean, the dogs are in their kennels....oh no, where are you, cause I am coming there to kick your butt! She explains that they are just a few minutes away so I put down the hatchet and put it back into the drawer. There will be no stabbing tonite. I have just earned about five more minutes, what should I do? Dessert? Did we forget a dessert? Do Skittles qualify as a dessert? Yes. put them in a bowl, they look pretty and just say it's a fruit salad. You might laugh at this but hey, since going "green", I don't appreciate the fact that they use all those harsh, cancer causing agents on every piece of fruit brought over the border! Sounds good? Yes, Skittles it is!

Aaaah, our guests have arrived. And since they DO read my blog.....they arrived with nothing...no gift, no food, no nothing. (lol, I just have to rub that in because last time they came over I griped at the fact that they needed to bring a "hostess" gift, that they actually fell for it and brought me really cool 3-D sidewalk chalk) So anyway, here they are with nothing and I lock the door. When I see gifts, I will unlock. They remind me, screaming through the door that Sonic is close enough to us and they would rather eat there anyway. Oh alright, you big babies, come on in!

T and N glance around, noting that there are 62 different candles burning in every room of the house (to mask the "three dog smell"). I lean over toward them, whispering some incoherent sentence that went something like this "ya know, James is still a little bit upset over MJ's death and he just likes to light candles to remember his greatness, it's kind of like a shrine....but please don't say anything to him....I don't want to upset him...." then I start coughing and excuse myself to the restroom, remembering I didn't light a candle in there yet and since James was in there last.........well......

Time for dinner. T asks how I got the mash potatoes so creamy...BECAUSE THEY ARE FAKE OK!?!! FAKE POTATOES! THERE I ADMIT IT! I look around to see horror written all over the faces of my peers. I have lost it....I need to apologize for my sudden outburst but instead I put my finger in my ear and say "oh sorry, my hearing aid was way down...did I yell that? HA HA HA sorry...." I twist my finger around to make it look like I am turning up my fake hearing aid and then I go back to a normal range of voice and smile while taking a small bite of "fruit salad".
Dinner went off without a hitch, it was yummy and a huge "thank you" to James.

I tell my guests "we fixed it, you clean up". I never said I was a good hostess, and I felt this was fair since they didn't bring me a gift........lol. Oh alright, I will clean it up and T offered to help. Okay you go ahead and do it, I am going to go bowl a few lines....I will be back in a few hours. Nope, James already has the cards out. RATS! I politely ask if anyone would mind if I went a laid down for a few hours to let my overly stuffed stomach settle down and they just look at me. Cards then? I'd love to. sigh

We played, we laughed, we mocked one another, we had a great time. We played till about 2 a.m.
Now let me say that James usually doesn't stay up this late but we felt like we had to keep them until at least that time to see if there were any adverse side effects from the food or germy house stuff before they left. We didn't want them to get ill during there long drive home. We figured that if they got sick while they were here, we could just bury them out in the "dog cemetery" and score their car and credit cards. Well........they didn't bring us a gift...........so don't be looking at me like I am some evil, meth addicted, kitten killer......I figured that they at least had enough of a limit on their Visa to get a big screen plasma for James and I for our anniversary. Really, T and N would want that for us. Really!

I haven't heard from T yet and it is after noon on Sunday. This worries me a bit since she calls me everyday before noon. I don't dare call there though because if my phone # shows up on their caller ID while the police are putting up the yellow tape while chalking the body outlines, they are going to question James and I. There is no proof that we fed them last night, surely our neighbors won't rat us out....better that I just leave this alone and wait to read the obituaries for the next couple of days to see.....