Cooking at Casa Amanda (or, Why I Shouldn't Invite Boys Over for Dinner)

I want to preface this post by saying that making dinner for Mr. Sexy (we're protecting his identity, see) was totally my idea. When I suggested it to him the other day (using liquid courage, I'm sure), a little voice in the back of my head immediately screamed, "No, you crazy bitch! No! You'll screw it up! You'll poison him/burn the house down/have some sort of incident. Impress him some other way with something you're good at like slamming shots, owning cats or wearing a cleavage-baring shirt!"

I mentally screamed back at my inner voice to just shut the fuck up and go solve bigger problems like where my new Urban Decay eyeshadow disappeared to. She did. (It was under my car seat.)

Now, as I sit here eating cookie dough and reflecting on the night, I'm mostly glad I did not listen to her. Mostly.

See, my garbage disposal clogged up and refused to work about a week ago. Then, the other night, my dishwasher stopped draining. Water was just pooling in the bottom and threatening to flood my kitchen. Luckily for me, my good friend Stuff (again, I use code names to protect the innocent) came over (now, this is about an hour before Mr. Sexy was due to arrive, mind you) and was able to fix it for me (although how he focused with my dad hovering over him and lisping to high hell about how he knowth nothing about drainth but could fixth a Harley ANYTIME is beyond me).

The problems began after everyone left. My kitchen was all torn up, my hair was not styled and I had yet to drag my old dining room table up the very narrow basement steps (the ex came and took the set that I had been using). Mr. Sexy would be standing in my house in 30 minutes. I was freaking out a little. And wishing I kept whisky on hand for times like this.

It took me a ridiculous amount of time to remove the legs from the stupid table. After taking two of them off, I decided to leave the other two on and attempt to get the table up the steps like that (you know, to save time).

(I also decided to start my bathwater BEFORE I carried the table up. Don't ask why- in fact, don't ever ask why I do the things I do. Ask my mom or my bestie JChes, maybe they know.)

Anyway.

Bathwater is running. I'm barefoot in the basement in lounge pants and my work t-shirt. I heaved the table over to the steps and made my way up, table first. All went well till I was midway up. Suddenly I couldn't move up OR down. I was stuck. I was fucking STUCK.

The weight of the table was pushing me backwards and I was completely aware that if it somehow became unstuck, I would go flying down and the table would land on me and Mr. Sexy would arrive to find my cold, dead body in a crumpled mess on the concrete floor.

With unstyled hair.

And day old makeup.

And no dinner.

These thoughts terrified me enough to push harder. Well, that and the fact that I remembered my bathwater was still running. The following are actual words and phrases screeched by me while I pushed and stumbled:

"Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!"

"Oh my God. Please let me get this table up these stairs. PLEAAAAAAASE!"

"Why? WHY ME? WHYYYYYY? WHY IS THIS MY LIFE?!?!"

"I just wanted to make him dinner. JUST. WANTED. TO. MAKE. DINNER!"
[each period denotes a hard shove upwards on the table]

"Go. Up. GO. UP. Ok. OK! OUCH!"

The "OUCH!" came because with my last shove, the table lurched upwards and I was suddenly wedged between it and the wall. Along that wall is a ledge with shelving- unanchored shelving. I bumped into the shelves and a Tupperware container of cat food came flying down on my head. The impact on my head caused the top to fly off the container and a hellstorm of cat food came raining down on me, the steps and into the basement. I nearly dropped the table. Cat food was down my shirt, in my hair, between my toes. You can't make stuff like this up.

At that point I actually considered letting go and falling backwards into blissful unconsciousness.

I finally did get the table up the stairs. Then I laid on my dining room floor for two minutes. Then I remembered the bathwater (I'm pleased to share that I caught it in time; it did not overflow).

My frenzy was punctuated after I reassembled the table and got cleaned up. I had CURLERS IN MY HAIR and was putting makeup on when I realized my mascara was in my car. I knew Mr. Sexy would be pulling up anytime and I would be spotted in my driveway, hair in curlers and mascara-less like some kind of demented cat lady. I decided to make a run for it anyway... and slipped on the ice in the driveway. Luckily I fell against my car. As I laid on the hood, I wondered for a fleeting moment why these things happen to me. Then I stood up, opened the car door and grabbed my mascara and dashed back in the house...

... only to find a text from Mr. Sexy saying he was running late.

There was absolutely NO reason for me to have run around like a crackhead for 35 minutes. None.

Epilogue

Mr. Sexy did show up. I was a ball of stress for a bit but was able to calm down sufficiently (he talked to me in a slow, soothing voice and made no sudden moves- the way a person might deal with a mental patient or suicidal person) to finish making dinner. He seemed to like it (but boys do lie so maybe it was disgusting and he just didn't want to send me into a wine drinking shame spiral... very kind of him) and there were no fires, explosions, kitchen floods or bloodshed.

Joe Boxer stood there silently begging the whole time we ate. Mr. Sexy wanted to pinch his ear to teach him a lesson but I wouldn't let him.

Then T.V. was watched, I drank all the wine and Mr. Sexy went home. Once alone, I did not curl up in a ball of depression from my harrowing attempt at being domestic. I did, however, sullenly curse myself for not buying a bigger bottle of wine and not being more like Martha Stewart.

Man, I don't like that bitch.