The Unexpected Guest Kit
Dad: "Kelley, do you mind if I stop by with my golf buddies to say hello after my golf game?"
Me: "How far away are you, Dad?"
Dad: "About 10 minutes."
Me: "Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! Dad, the house is a MESS. I've got a mountain of laundry in the living room and there are dishes in the sink!"
Dad: "What's new?"
Me: "Dad, please just let the boys and I come out to say hello to you in the car. PLEASE call me when you turn on our street".
Knock. Knock.
And there they were. They kept saying over and over, "Oh, we don't care what your house looks like (you stinkin' unworthy mother of two). We came to see your boys (so we could find them a more fit home)! We don't even SEE the dishes in the sink (overflowing onto the floor and out of the front door and into the street and down the drain and into the sewage and out into the bayou and into the port and out to the Gulf and...). Stop being so worried (because CPS won't arrive for at least another hour). Women are always so worried about what their houses look like (and your house looks just like a landfill, you dusty varmint!)."
I need at least a good week to get the house ready before guests come over. Okay, an hour would be great. I WANT to have the kind of house where someone could drop by out of nowhere and I don't feel like crawling in my air ducts. One of the main reasons I want a pristine house at all times is because I always forget to close the air duct grate all the way when I crawl into it and end up being discovered by Unexpected Guest, which makes my humiliation absolutely skyrocket. I also don't really fit in the air duct well & have been known to emerge with a fuzzy dust in my hair that remains there during the entire vist with Unexpected Guest. How awkward.
So, I've developed The Unexpected Guest Kit (UGK), only to be used on days when your house, your outfit and your hairdo are absolutely hideous, which includes:
Me: "How far away are you, Dad?"
Dad: "About 10 minutes."
Me: "Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! Dad, the house is a MESS. I've got a mountain of laundry in the living room and there are dishes in the sink!"
Dad: "What's new?"
Me: "Dad, please just let the boys and I come out to say hello to you in the car. PLEASE call me when you turn on our street".
Knock. Knock.
And there they were. They kept saying over and over, "Oh, we don't care what your house looks like (you stinkin' unworthy mother of two). We came to see your boys (so we could find them a more fit home)! We don't even SEE the dishes in the sink (overflowing onto the floor and out of the front door and into the street and down the drain and into the sewage and out into the bayou and into the port and out to the Gulf and...). Stop being so worried (because CPS won't arrive for at least another hour). Women are always so worried about what their houses look like (and your house looks just like a landfill, you dusty varmint!)."
I need at least a good week to get the house ready before guests come over. Okay, an hour would be great. I WANT to have the kind of house where someone could drop by out of nowhere and I don't feel like crawling in my air ducts. One of the main reasons I want a pristine house at all times is because I always forget to close the air duct grate all the way when I crawl into it and end up being discovered by Unexpected Guest, which makes my humiliation absolutely skyrocket. I also don't really fit in the air duct well & have been known to emerge with a fuzzy dust in my hair that remains there during the entire vist with Unexpected Guest. How awkward.
So, I've developed The Unexpected Guest Kit (UGK), only to be used on days when your house, your outfit and your hairdo are absolutely hideous, which includes:
- SHOE BELLS- place these at the end of your driveway or on your front porch with a sign that says "Put these on your sneaky feet, for goodness sakes, so I can have a 5 second warning that you are about to ring the doorbell & make me feel like a giant horsefly." These 5 seconds will be just enough time to activate the rest of your UGK.
A TAPE RECORDED MESSAGE- As soon as the front door opens, a message you have previously recorded will say:
"Oh, I am so glad you stopped by! Please do come in. How are you?.......How's work going?.......How old are those kids now?........Who won the World Cup?.........Have you seen gas prices these days?..........Isn't the weather something else?.........What did you do last weekend?...........Have you eaten at that new Chinese restaurant?........Have you gotten on Facebook yet?.............Are you on Team Edward or Team Jacob?.........Do you Twitter?............What's the latest with the oil spill?................."
You will have exactly 10 seconds between each question for an answer to be squeezed in. When you are absolutely a nervous wreck over having your house viewed by outside eyes, it is difficult to pull it together for a decent, friendly conversation. Let the questions give you some breathing room! Remember though, if it looks like Unexpected Guest is headed to 8 seconds and is still inhaling in preparation for his or her long-winded response, accidently trip on the air in front of you with a huge fistful of ...
...POP ROCKS in your hand & land them all in Unexpected Guest's mouth. This tingling sensation will surely get them back on track. Also, keep in mind that the pre-recorded message can be stopped at anytime by the loud exclamation of "YOU DON'T SAY!" Know that you can customize the questions to suit you and your personality. If questions like "Do you boil your jello on the stove or buy it pre-jiggled in individual cups?" are more your style, then, by all means, change that mess up. The goal here is to make Unexpected Guest so exasperated with you and your incessant questions that they give up on the visit and proceed back out the door. However, the plan could backfire. Some people LOVE answering questions above themselves which places you at risk of becoming like the unfortunate elderly woman above in the 1980 movie "Airplane!" if you don't stop that stinkin' tape in time.
A T-SHIRT LAUNCHER CUSTOMIZED TO FIT LARGE SHEETS (TSLCTFLS)- you've seen them at baseball games, basketball games, etc. Since we've exchanged t-shirts for large sheets, the machine works a little differently. Instead of nearly decapitating Unsuspecting Hot Dog Eater at a Ball Game with a t-shirt, the machine now sends out a large sheet that will quickly and effectively cover any mess in seconds. Remember, the TSLCTFLS only holds one large sheet at a time. Unless you have trained your 2-year-old son to quickly and effectively repack the TSLCTFLS with new sheets, you only have one shot to cover your nasty tracks. Thanks to Bocephus's uncanny knack for stuffin' sheets into huge launchers, I have been known to bust one sheet out right in the kitchen to cover the mess from dinner the night before and another immediately across the house to cover a pile of laundry. You ain't catchin' me looking like NO SLOB! Instead of apologizing profusely to Unexpected Guest for falling asleep before I could take a chisel to the dried spaghetti on that pot on the stove, I pull the trigger like a Marine and...BAM! All they see is a sheet. If they give you any raised eyebrows, say you plan on painting in the kitchen later that day. For a bit extra, I will throw in that large robot head above so you can hide your identity completely.
MOSQUITO NET SEWING MATERIALS PACKET- tucked away in a very inconspicuous, but easy to access area (behind your refrigerator is a great spot), will be your Mosquito Net Sewing Materials Packet. With a quick "Look over there!", you can use one hand and a quick flick of the wrist to unfold an elaborate set of needles, threads, cloth, patterns and a stack of already made mosquito nets all over your kitchen table. One quick glance at your kitchen table full of good deeds will quickly erase the memory of your horrendous home from Unexpected Guest. This is also a good opportunity for you to educate them about how many people die from malaria each day. Look closely in the pile on your kitchen table and you will find literature to share from organizations like Project Mosquito Net, Samaritan's Purse and Nothing but Nets.
The UGKs are going fast! Order YOURS today!
If you order within the next 24 hours, I will throw in a lovely UNEXPECTED GUEST BLINDFOLD for absolutely FREE but you gotta act FAST!
And this is an inside joke for my youngest reader: "Big L, little l; Little Lola Lopp. Left leg. Lazy lion licks a lollipop."