The Dinner Invitation
2005-09-16, 9:55 p.m.

So, we were invited to dinner at the home of the wealthy shut-in little old lady next door. Hubby, between duties for work and school, could not attend, thus it fell upon me to chaperone our children for a meal in the home of someone we do not know well. I prayed hard to the gods of hospitality and etiquette that Son would behave, please please PLEASE behave.

There was the pre-meal manners cram session right before going over.
1. Please behave.
2. If you do not like the spaghetti, do NOT say so. Just say �No thank you� and I�ll feed you a pizza later.
3. If you do not like the spaghetti, do NOT spit it out. Swallow. Swallow, or I will kill you.
4. Please behave.
5. If you do not like the spaghetti, do NOT whine about it and say her cooking�s bad.
6. Please behave.

I did allow Son to bring his GameBoy. Better to have a sanity saver (for me), than to hold fast to it�s confiscation and give him extra time to wreak havoc next door. A bored boy is a dangerous thing.

It began well. Daughter helped slice the garlic bread, I helped set the table, and Son tried his best to pilfer Oreos from her kitchen. The lady, having raised a son and with several grandsons, laughed it off. We sat at the table, and Son began cramming garlic bread in his mouth. I made him remove it long enough for us to say the blessing. I put spaghetti on his plate and he began eating. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed him helping himself to some more sauce. Fearful that he would spill it on her tablecloth, I took the spoon to do it for him�and spilled it on her tablecloth. Heh heh. Heh.

She told us of her family, of how her husband was a lawyer and deputy mayor and member of city council for years until his death. She told us of how much she enjoyed her job (school teacher) and how she missed it now that she�s retired. Son was busy stuffing his face with spaghetti and generally ignoring the conversation. He surfaced long enough to ask if she used to flip burgers for a living. Heh heh. Heh.

Son took a sip of water too soon after a bite of spaghetti and got strangled. He spit water and spaghetti particles all over her cloth napkin and tablecloth. Heh, um, heh. Sorry.

I helped clear the table and returned to find Son readying himself for dessert by tying another of her cloth napkins around his neck, silverware in both fists. He had already polished off her plate of Oreos. She proffered chocolate pudding, which he stuck his tongue in a spoonful and decreed he was too full to eat. Daughter decided to be entertaining, and began relaying the tale of how during a trip to my aunt and uncle�s home in California, the plumbing overflowed with raw sewage and the 300 lb plumber could not fit into the crawlspace, forcing my uncle to shimmy underneath the house to complete the job. To family members who know my uncle and the remaining details, it becomes an amusing story. In the home of someone you hardly know who has just served up chocolate pudding, the raw sewage imagery just doesn�t hold the same luster.

The lady carried the dessert dishes into the kitchen, and it seems that amongst her numerous health problems are gastrointestinal ailments. She tottered into the kitchen, leaving a VERY loud and VERY long, long, LONG flatulent wake. I have never heard a fart like that. It shook the rafters. The lady took no notice. Daughter looked at me with wide eyes. Son�s expression was like he had just been given an early Christmas. That was when I made my children go outside and play, bidden by The Look, The Look that says if you so much as make one single sound, one snicker, one awkward glance, I will strip your flesh from your bones and grind your remains into powder and bury you where no one will ever, ever find you. They went to play on our trampoline without another word. Daughter did manage a hasty �Thank you, we are going outside to play now� as I was shoving them out the door. Son looked as though he was about to explode.

I helped her with the dishes and remained for a little while to visit. We sat in her living room and discussed her cats. The rumbling renewed. We discussed her children. More rumbling. The couch vibrated. The chair trembled. We discussed how she loves country music and Civil War history and her grandchildren. More rumbling with vigor. She got up to let in her cat. I had to look at the couch to see if she had made a crater. More rumbling. I couldn�t do it anymore, chit chat with a straight face, so I excused myself to go home and get the children showered and ready for bed.

If she lights any candles, her house is going to go up like a hydrogen bomb. And I am never going to be able to eat spaghetti with a straight face for as long as I live.

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