Another One Bites The Dust

I realize my post titles are making my blog look like some kind of homage to Classic Rock these days. I just can't stop myself.

Anyway, what I'm referring to is another friendship possibility. I've mentioned before that I won't be remembering this short time in San Antonio for the oodles of friends I made.

Last week, I ran into my adorable German neighbor, Melanie, from my building while we were both taking our dogs out to go potty. We usually see each other, exchange pleasantries, and make empty promises to one another that we'll have a play date soon. This time, she reinforced the gesture by saying, "Please, feel free to drop in on me anytime this week so the kids can play together."

Now, I should interject that I LOVE dropping in on people. You just never know what kind of chaos you're going to find lurking behind the book's cover! Especially when there are children in the mix. Will their house look like a bomb went off? Will the kids be covered in honey and dust bunnies, with leaves and grass in their hair? Will the mom be braless and without makeup? The possibilities are delicious to dream up!

Usually, when I am dropped in on, the above description applies to my home. One time, though, back when I was pregnant with Luke, one of our pastors and another staff member from our church dropped in on Joe and me in the evening. They were out doing visitations and thought they would stop by. My house happened to be spotless, I was in a cute dress, and I was plating up some pineapple upside-down cake. "Won't you join us for some cake?" I asked casually, while I really wanted to do fist pumps, so excited that for once in my life, I appeared to have it all together. We sat around eating and talking, and I thought to myself, This is as good as it gets. A spontaneous snapshot of my life looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. It's all downhill from here.

Anyway, a knock on Melanie's door at 9:30 Thursday morning confirmed my fears--that she is some kind of psychopath.

When we came in, her two toddlers were well-groomed, finishing up their breakfast, and generally calm. Nobody was spilling juice or demanding chicken nuggets. The dog wasn't stealing anybody's muffin, and nobody was jamming a spoon down a baby's throat while the mother wasn't looking. They were like darling little robots!

Although they have a beagle, there was nary a dog hair on her floor. I would have eaten a seven course meal off of it. Her white sofa, that's right, white sofa, was spotless and casually accented with perfectly-fluffed throw pillows. I thought to myself, Okay, she appears to have it together, but I'll bet her desk is covered with bill stubs, catalogs and empty coffee cups. Wrong! All she had on the desk was computer equipment, and some freak of nature had left the mouse on the mouse pad.

A peek in her kitchen left me flabbergasted. Zero dishes in the sink. That slob probably uses paper products all the time, I thought. And then I realized that her dishwasher was running. Wrong again!

We sat in her daughter's room while the children played nicely together, and wouldn't you know it--all the beds had been made perfectly by Mrs. Hospital Corners. A trip to the bathroom with Luke was very informative, too. It seems nobody uses her sink without wiping it down and polishing the chrome fixtures. It's totally sick!

I wish I could be better friends with Melanie, because I really enjoyed her company, and her accent is adorable. She even gave me some suggestions to help George sleep longer at night, and lo and behold, they're working. It's just that, while I do try to keep my home tidy, I can't be up till midnight every night cleaning my windows and lining up our books from shortest to tallest in the event we have a spontaneous play date at our place. It would feel like I'm trying to sell a house all over again, and I got pretty burned out on that last summer.

I bet her closet is a real pigsty...