So we started a writing group, the Super Friends and I, and once every two weeks we gather around someone's dining room table to say wankery stuff like "the voice of the piece" and "show don't tell" and to read what we've written in great haste several minutes before the start of writing group over the past two weeks.
Last night, the group met at our house, and in keeping with the agreed-upon Group Etiquette, I provided munchies complementary to the wine the other members would bring. I stopped at my favorite little Italian grocery store on the way home and got a loaf of wonderful fresh, delicious focaccia, some Havarti and Jarlsberg, some crackers in a fancy box, and a container of pesto. Before everyone arrived, I sliced and halved and arranged the foodstuffs attractively on a serving platter and cutting board and placed them in the center of the table for all to enjoy. As someone who routinely lunches on microwaved turkey dogs, I was feeling pretty goddamned classy. Behold my hostessing prowess, motherfuckers!
The spread was enjoyed by all for the first half-hour or so, and then someone wanted a cigarette break, and we all went off to the porch, leaving no one inside except:
1. Marc, who was upstairs working on someting computer-related;
2. Our friend Silja, who was upstairs collaborating with Marc on the computer-related something;
3. Four cats;
4. Amanda's dog, Corydon;
5. Our dog, Tigger.
Can you see where this is going?
When everyone came inside from the porch, there was momentary befuddlement regarding the location of the cheese that had been on the table. Faced with the Case of the Missing Cheese, my friends broke out the SherlockHolmes/ScoobyDoo mojo and used their powers of deductive reasoning to conclude that it was ... The Dog! The Dog Did It! The Dog, in the Dining Room, with the Candle Stick her greedy jaws that are fully capable of unhinging, python-style, and swallowing whole chicken breasts, bagels, intact livestock, etc.
But I wasn't convinced. I was thinking, 'Oh, ha ha, Farnsworth,' because Marc, knowing well my propensity for misplacing everything I own at least four times per day, is of the opinion that hiding things from me is hysterically funny. Hysterically. I'll be walking around the house bonking into walls, tripping over large pieces of furniture, falling down the stairs, yelling, "Where in the HELL are my glasses?" and then I'll find Marc in the kitchen, giggling like a schoolgirl, whereupon I'll call him names in a most unladylike fashion, and he'll pull my glasses from his back pocket and explode into laughter that lasts for several hours, or until I hit him over the head with a chair. Whichever comes first.
My case was purely circumstantial, of course, and while I know that past crimes are not admissible in a court of law, I know well my husband's M.O. and felt fully justified in stomping up the stairs and barging into his office to go all J'ACCUSE on his ass. He denied the crime, and he convinced me in short order that he was not responsible, mostly due to the fact that he is a terrible liar, and he was obviously not lying.
Just as I returned to the living room, our dog, who had until this point been engaged in snarly/barky/drooly mania with Amanda's dog, suddenly stood still, looked vaguely confused, opened her mouth, and deposited five dollars worth of slightly-reconstituted Jarlsberg onto the dining room rug. As I ran to the kitchen for the paper towel roll, her regurgitative onslaught shifted into 5th, and she began a rather impressive Monty Python-esque display of projectile ejecting of six dollars' worth of Havarti. If you don't know anything about cheese, let me tell you this: Havarti is softer than Jarlsberg. And, in this case, it was slightly more reconstituted than had been the Jarlsberg, and it was at that moment being sprayed with accompanying chunks of dog food onto my dining room rug, living room carpet, and the back of the arm chair. My friends decided most coincidentally at that moment that they needed another cigarette, leaving me alone with a roll of paper towels and four puddles of dog vomit.
So much for a classy evening.
From now on, when it's my turn to host writing group, I'm serving generic tortilla chips, Cheez-Whiz, a bowl of canned Vienna Sausages, and a six-pack of Schlitz. Anyone wanna come over? If you're real nice, I might even nuke you up a turkey dog.
posted by Kate at 10:36 AM link/comments
