Let's Just Call Them "Suggestions"

Last night, after I got home from writing group, Delta Hotel informed me that I would be hosting a dinner party the following evening at 6:30.
"Just make whatever you were making anyway. And don't worry about cleaning up, it's just so-and-so from work."
WELL.
EVERYBODY knows that there are three types of guests.
1. Lysol, Mop-N-Glo, Windex guests
2. Throw it all in the bedroom and shut the door guests
3. Doesn't matter they've seen it before guests

EVERYBODY knows that persons who have not yet been into your home and are coming over in 18 hours to sample your cooking AUTOMATICALLY fall into the first group. Delta Hotel could shout from the rooftop that I don't need to clean up for so-and-so, but first impressions are everything. One day he could come over and find six bras hanging on the towel rack and four inches of cheerios under the table and a pound of coupons and junk mail on the counter and if he has the impression that we live straight out of Better Homes, he'll just assume I've been burglarized recently.

So, 7:00 this morning, I switched my dial to crisis mode. I cleaned, I grocery shopped (despite Delta's permission, I was NOT reheating leftovers for our dinner guest) I chopped sliced, sauteed baked and crimped. At 3:00 Delta Hotel called and babbled about some thing or another and then went on to inform me that the dinner plans had been bumped up. They would arrive at 4 for an hour of entertainment from me before eating. I was sitting in my car in line at the elementary school at the time. In a panic, I drove my car over the gym teacher, picked up Ya-Ya and her friend, and committed thirteen other moving violations to get home and finish cleaning, cooking and putting on my mascara.

Finally, after hours of planning and preparation, with adrenaline PUDDLING around my ankles, I sat down. I looked at my watch. 4:30. Were could Delta Hotel be? So I called him. He had decided to stop at his friends house for a visit.
"How lovely," I said. "I do hope you're having a nice visit. Now come home and eat the food I have been cooking all day in the kitchen I've cleaned 8 times at the table with the cloth that is not only fresh out of the drier, but ironed, on the seat where your ass should have been a half an hour ago, MR DINNER PARTY."
No I didn't. I'm far too passive aggressive for that. My friend Ms. Em came over to pick up her daughter. She said, "My goodness it looks just like a restaurant in here. There's such an ambiance." and she gave me an idea.

When Delta hotel still hadn't arrived at 5:30, I set out 2 plates, 2 napkins and 2 forks, lit a candle, hoped the house wouldn't burn down, and I laughed all the way to the car.

But then I came home, two hours later. Not only was Delta Hotel's guest there, but he turned out to be a corn-fed cross between Opie, Mother Theresa and Pollyana. There I was all bitchy and passive aggressive and ready to smile and make sarcastic remarks at Delta and he was all, "OOH I love your cooking your house is so great and you look like you're twenty-one." Talk about stripping a girl of all her defenses. Even my big mean dog loved him.

The events of today have forced me to redefine my boundaries. We won't call them rules, merely suggestions. Just like doctors "suggest" you don't smoke or take six vicadins at a time or walk on the train tracks while listening to your ipod.

1. I now require at least 24 but preferably 48 hours of notice before a dinner party involving guests from the first category.
2. I now require a written, signed and witnessed document stating the time dinner is to be served.
3. If this is a problem, I have two words for you: Order Out. or Doit Yourself. or Kiss myass.

Thank you and goodnight.