Type A Dinner Party

Kate Gosselin and Martha Stewart beware: you've got some competition on your hands.

Yesterday (on a whim, mind you), I decided to have some of our married friends over for dinner. A casual, low-key, unimpressive dinner.

Right.

Here's how the preparations went down:

1) We were having chicken quesadillas. Easy, right? Boring? I thought I'd force myself into serving something normal. Well, I had the entire brick of cheese grated by noon. Our guests weren't coming 'til 5. I had a pan of brownies already cooked and cooled on the counter by 11 a.m. To top it off, I decided brownies weren't good enough for dessert. Someone was bound to be a chocolate hater, the inconceivable fiend. I made a batch of monkey bread.

2) Our apartment is usually "walk-in-able" on most days (i.e. no underwear strewn across the house, no larger-than-my-head globs of toothpaste on the bathroom counter, no puddles of melted popcicles on the table). We cleaned over the clean. We polished over the stuff no one would look at (Bradley scrubbed the floor boards of the bathroom). I mean, what if someone actually had to USE our bathroom for more than 30 seconds? I would be horrified if they went to wash their hands and caught their elbow in a bit of goop. Or worse yet, what if they were chillin' on the porceline seat of power and began looking at all the grime we'd missed? I also fluffed the pillows. Yes, fluffed.

3) I PRE-BUTTERED the tortillas.

4) Here's the worst one. In order to make it look like I didn't care as much about my preparations as I really did, I wanted to keep the chairs at the kitchen table instead of pre-placing them in the living room so it would look like I hadn't thought of it when our guests arrived (we had to eat in the living room for space reasons). I also kept the fruit in the dreaded tupperware container so it would appear as if I didn't care about using a nicer bowl. Yeah.

5) After two unneccesary and consecutive trips to the corner store for various items we though we HAD to have for our quesadillas, Bradley and I were finished by 4:55 and eagerly awaiting a knock at the door within 5 mintues time. We sat on the couch, a bit moody after the stress, and looked around at our evidence of psychological abnormalty.

Our guests arrived at 5:30. Both brought delicious side dishes in tupperware and I could've swatted myself. It seemed so comfortable, so natural. Plastic. It made me take a deep breath.

Overall, we had a great time. But why the fuss? I don't give a darn when I go over to someone else's house for dinner and they're serving out of plastic. I don't even notice. I don't notice the dirt, the dust. I don't care if they're still finishing things up when I arrive. It's just normal, isn't it?

Next task: Crush the type A preparations and chant "I am not Kate Gosselin, I am not Kate Gosselin" until I get it right. Oh, and I think I'll order pizzas next time, too. But hold the olives, please. We love you black fruit of goodness, but our guests might not...