My wife and I threw a little dinner party for some of my friends the other night.
I should point out that we're talking about two couples we have known for years and with whom we get along wonderfully. But to my wife, they're my friends because I knew them first and introduced them to her. It's only if she knew them first and introduced them to me that they would be "our friends".
As goofy as it may sounds, this is a very important and useful distinction to my wife. Because when she's spending an entire day in an absolute uproar, it's nice for her to be able to repeatedly point out that she's " ... doing this all for your friends". It's a hidden cost of entertaining.
See, I come from the school of thought that goes something like this: "We're having guests over. These are people who know us and like us for who we are. We'll have a couple of glasses of wine - maybe more, who knows? We'll have lots of laughs, some good food, and at the end of the evening we'll all be richer for the experience. So let's enjoy."
My wife comes from the school of thought that goes: "Gaahhhhh! We're having guests over? Tonight??? And just look at this place!"
So I look at this place - and it doesn't look all that bad. I mean we've got two cats, a dog, and me living in our house, so it's just not ever going to be that clean that you'd want the Queen and Prince Philip to drop by. (And, to their credit, they never do. At least without phoning first.)
But it's never really a pigsty around our house. Usually it's a matter of picking up that morning's newspaper and maybe a jacket or two and some sweat socks, and it looks okay to me. But where I see clean, my wife sees a festering sewer of filth contaminating the face of the planet.
She'll point over my shoulder at the living room and say "How can you invite people into this house when it looks like that?"
And I'll turn around, expecting maybe that our dog has dragged a raccoon carcass into the middle of the living room floor ... but there's nothing.
Okay, maybe we could run a vacuum over the carpet, but if we didn't, my friends wouldn't notice. Not that they're slobs, it's just I don't spend all that much time with people who are likely to get upset with a stray dog hair or a fleck of potato chip that the dog missed. None of my friends comes over to practice surgery. Which you could do, once my wife is done cleaning.
When it comes to making dinner, once again I'm a tad more cavalier than she is. Say it's a barbeque. Simple. You slap a few steaks onto the grill, some baked potatoes, throw a salad together, maybe some nice garlic toast - you got a meal.
My wife looks at me like I'm some sort of heathen. "What about the hors d'ouvres?" she'll ask.
Hors d'ouvres? At a barbeque? These are friends. They have lives like ours. Kids. If they weren't coming to our place, they'd be yelling their food order into a clown's mouth. But she has to serve hors d'ouvres?
She frets about the dust on top of the fridge. She frets about the fact that we only have seven matching soup spoons because one time I used one to mix some plaster and we were never able to chip it clean. She even tidies up the shopping lists and photos that are stuck to our fridge with little strawberry magnets. I say when you get to the point that the worst thing you can find is crooked fridge art, you're looking at one clean house. But she just won't stop.
I should be more understanding, I suppose. It's important to her that everything be perfect - and God love her, it usually is. But it's wasted on the kind of friends I have.
I think what I'll do is write the Queen. Invite her and Prince Philip by for a couple of slabs of barbequed ribs next time they're in the area. They can even bring the grandchildren. Then my wife can go into a frenzy for a good cause. I'll even make up the hors d'ouvres.
But when they get to the door, I'll make sure my wife answers. She can introduce me. That way, they'll be her friends.
