Saturday, October 13, 2007

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Tonight we are having Mr. H. over for dinner. And by that I do not mean that we are having our dead cat, Mr. Horkheimer, for dinner. Although technically we are, as his ashes are still on our dining room hutch.

Mr. H. is one of Marvin Gardens' co-workers, another teacher at the school. I did not want to type in his real name, lest children Google him and find this blog, and then one day Marvin Gardens will go to work and all the kids will be calling him Marvin Gardens. Which does not command respect, really.

"Hi, Marvin Gardens!" which will inevitably lead to "Hi, B&O Railroad!" "Good morning, Community Chest!" You can see it will go nowhere good. Why do you people have kids, again?

When we moved here from Los Angeles two months ago, we donated our kitchen table to charity, as it was decidedly wobbly. Which I know does not seem kind. "Here are our dregs! Move forward, unfortunate person! Prosper!" But the charity assured us that the table was still good.

So we lived here for the first six weeks with no eating table whatsoever, relegating all meals to the living room, where we ate during Reba. This led to crumbs on the couch and eventually ants.

A few weeks back, we found the coolest 1950s Formica table, which we bought, as some sort of table seemed a necessity. But what we didn't buy were chairs. When we want to eat at the table, we drag this computer chair in, and a chair from another desk elsewhere in the house.

But now we are having an actual third human at the house. This will mean that we will either have to pull up the rocking chair, so I will have to be Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies during dinner, or we'll have to bring in one of the lawn chairs from outside. Which does not look insane at all.

Maybe I can be one of those women who never sit down during dinner. I could keep pretending that I have to jump up and check on the lasagna. Or I could say in our culture, the woman eats after the men do.

Alternatively, I could act like I'm too angry to come to the table. I could cross my arms over by the sink and huff. Or I could sit in Marvin's lap the whole time, and gaze at him like I'm Yoko Ono.

Fortunately, Mr. H. is like 22 years old or something. Probably most of his friends don't have a real dining room table and chairs. Perhaps he expects more from a couple in their 40s.

But maybe he is just excited about the free lasagna.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

We have the most beautiful carved dining chairs at our thrift store with the price of $6.00 each on them .. perhaps your local thrift store would have like. Might be worth spending just a little bit on some chairs .. especially if you get them extremely cheap.

How exciting to be dining at home with a local .. or is he a transplant too? Whatever way .. have fun!

Anonymous said...

The young man probably won't notice the chairs don't "match". Use a lawn chair. He's so thrilled to have a home cooked meal.

June Cutoff Cash said...

Sadly, Tee? So is Marvin Gardens. We've been having a lot of the soup lately. And the Lean Cuisines.

Anonymous said...

Mr. H is one lucky man. You have to tell us how this goes. Maybe he can bring a chair:)

June Cutoff Cash said...

I totally should have made it a BYOC evening.

Anonymous said...

June...if you play monopoly, which token do you chose?

Anonymous said...

I've had your lasagna before. Mr. H. is in for a big treat. I'm sure he won't care about the chairs. We can't eat at our dining room table either as the dining room is transformed into an arts and crafts room where I try to come up with new art lessons for my students. It's not bugging me at all. No....not I....not I who color coordinates her closets....not I who alphabetizes the food in the cupboards.

Tamara said...

Do you have an ottoman? Or a 2 drawer filing cabinet? Just curious...both of those would work??? :) You make me giggle!!!

Musings of a Housewife said...

Ha! How did it go? I'd say chairs are a necessity. Go buy a few, why don't you!?

Catherine said...

Could you be any funnier??? Who knew that not having furniture could be so hilarious???
PS You are not expected to answer these questions.