Doorbell!  Oh, it happened once or more.  But, it always happened on days like today when my hair is sleep wrinkled and I am not dressed for the day as I should be and it is afternoon.  Orange juice dripped from the kitchen counter, and cheerios from the kids’ breakfasts were cemented on the table and high chair tray.  Dishes were not done.  Toys were scattered in colorful drifts in the living room. The carpet had mysterious stains on it.  Piles of items to go upstairs were stacked on the stairwell.  The kids learned to jump over these piles to avoid tidy anything over chaos.

I swallowed my pride, and I answered the door.  I was greeted, always, by another mother who had pulled herself and her toddlers together in appropriate clothing.  The words;  “I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d drop by…”  I quickly would make up an excuse about the mess and my attire.  None of them were believable.  It never happened when I was at least showered and dressed.  It never happened when the house was clean and the carpet was freshly steam cleaned.

We would have coffee, and any toddlers had a trip to a circus with the toys tossed around the house.  Soon, these mothers would gather up their tots and leave.  I know that some of these visitors had fun over a luncheon out talking about me and my mess.

My mother, an O.C.D. neatness person lived over three hours away in an isolated spot on Lake Huron.  She always knew we were coming to visit, and she started locking her screen door.  I rang her doorbell several times, trying not to drop the baby and/or the diaper bag on her porch.  Her house, as she entered her late seventies, was always neat like whiskey straight.  I noticed her Kirby vacuum cleaner was out and plugged in as well.  After several visits of this nature the vacuum remained in the same spot gathering cobwebs and dust.  She smiled at me on one of these visits and said:  “I leave it out so if someone drops in on me I tell them, “Oh, I was just about to finish cleaning!”

How brilliant an idea!  I began leaving my vacuum out as well.  It was plugged in and ready to go, or so it appeared.  After a month of this my husband asked me:  “Are we going to decorate THIS for Christmas or do you want me to back your car out so it has its own parking space?”