Oh, Ricky!!

The 'good' news of my day is that Fred and Ethel (my parents-in-law) are scheduled to land at our house for a 3 day visit. Today! This very today that comes just THREE days after tax day. And after the weekend where I used all my available task energy on taxes instead of on my weekendly cleaning ritual. True I made a choice, but tax prison scares me only a little more than the jaundiced eye Ethel gives my slipshod ways.

I was an hour late for work this morning because I cleaned my way out of the house - erasing all the peanut butter fingerprints as I backed to the door. I also made sure the scent reservoirs in the Wallflowers were filled. I mean if the place smells good, it MUST be clean, right? Wrong. I doubt even the Wallflowers will overpower the smell of the jammed garbage disposal. Thank you Homer who blames Alpha who blames Homer. It happened the weekend Omega and I were gone so probably only the cat knows what really happened and he takes bribes so you can't believe much of what he says.

To their credit, they did try to un-jam it – but did not try to take it apart. I was hoping it would spontaneously fix itself because just the idea of dealing with food debris makes me retch… heartily. I can’t even stand food floaters in my dishwater. Dishes must be pretty close to spotless BEFORE I will hand wash them. Right now my Diet Dew is backing up my throat a little bit just talking about it. But I’m thinking…….just maybe…..I can hook Fred into some plumbing work. He doesn’t like to see women get their hands dirty.

The other little problem that will surely shout ‘Welcome to the JaneFay Family Zoo’ is the ants. Yes I said ants. A week ago, shortly after I vacuumed the dining room, I noticed that someone had dropped a bunch of little somethings all over the floor. I was about to launch into an ‘I live with a passel of slovenly oafs’ lecture, when I saw that the somethings were MOVING because they were ANTS! And ant central seemed to be Homer’s briefcase. I picked up the briefcase and found HUNDREDS of ants underneath! Well, launch a few screams and toss in some expletives and people do come running. Homer dashed out the door with the bag. Omega grabbed the Dust*Buster and started chasing after ants. This is where those video game skills finally come in handy. I just pointed – she ran them down and sucked them up.
Turns out that Homer had a bag of raunchy grapes in one of the secret compartments of his trusty Swiss Army briefcase. I knew things would get lost in there when I bought it for him but it just seemed so…..so Swiss Armyish! I couldn't resist. But tell me honestly, would that ever happen with a woman’s purse? I don’t think so.

Now, even though I have banned that briefcase from the house, I still see an occasional ‘friend’ who must have wandered too far from the mothership. Ethel will find them, I know she will.
Maybe CatTwo will bring in another rat - that'll make the ants seem pretty insignificant, I think.

And then there’s the bathroom problem. You already know I’m no Becky Home-Ecky so I might as well air my dirty porcelain as well. See, although the guest bath has a nice Jacuzzi tub, it has no shower. And using Alpha/Omega's shower requires taking stairs, which Ethel does NOT do. Nor does she do baths because that requires sitting down low where the knees won’t go and I, personally, have NO desire to try to extract a slippery, wet, NAKED mother-in-law from the bathtub – ewww, so that leaves the master bath shower which, if you remember, is not guest appropriate. So far I have not had time to tackle it with bleach and chisel, but I informed Homer this morning that he is going to remain in the bedroom with me on Saturday morning, pretending to have sex until we get that bathroom spotless. And, if Ethel comes knocking we’ll just breathe heavy and say ‘Go...ahh... away...ohhh’ and if she gives any indication that she thinks we're cleaning instead of...umm, you know….. well, then I’ll just put the briefcase under her bed.

So, wish me luck. My time online will probably be limited to their nap time and by that time I will probably ALSO need rest time. Got that? Have a fabulous weekend! Do it for me.