With Friends Like Me...

I like to help. Part of my life philosophy is that if you can help, you sorta should. So when my friends needed a place to stay for a few weeks, and I was gonna be out of the country anyway, I figured they should just crash at my place. That way, I wouldn't have to worry about my apartment standing empty and they wouldn't have to worry about some hobo stealing their things while they slept.

Anyway. Trouble is, I'm totally crazy, and come from a long line of folks who don't do at all well with sharing their space. The Hubleys do not entertain at home, because we are so OCD about things like guests wearing shoes and putting their bags on the kitchen counter. It makes us sniffy and passive-aggressive and prone to saying things like, "I don't mean to be, you know, but could you take your filthy germ-ridden handbag off my nice clean counter?" Oh, we're fun at parties I tell you.

The best part is, I'm not even tidy. So unlike my Mom, who legitimately keeps a spotless home, I can't even claim to maintaining any kind of standard. I'm just weird.

I tamped all this down, though, because the medication is working, and extended the invite. And I largely didn't think about it -- until the cab ride home from the airport.

On the cab ride home, I decided that my friends had probably burned both my apartment and the rest of the brownstone to the ground. They had obviously had orgies in my bed, involving St. Bernards and mustard, while wearing galoshes and smearing their underpants on the walls. In fact, I was sure, they were probably still there.

I seemed to recall that it's pretty hard to evict someone from an apartment in Brooklyn. This is because we are communists.

By the time the cab hit my neighborhood, I was quivering all over with rage at my imagined scenario. How dare they! They would just have to pack up and squat somewhere else! And they could damn well take the dog with them.

When I got home, of course, my apartment was absolutely spotless. In addition, there was food in the fridge, flowers in a vase on the table, and a fresh bottle of wine next to a lovely note thanking me for my hospitality. (There was no toilet paper when they arrived, I'm pretty sure. Maybe that passes for hospitality now, I don't know. What I do know is that my friends are much nicer people than me.)

In addition, when I logged onto my computer, I found a rather astonishing amount of pornography in my browser history. And not a single St. Bernard in sight! So as you can see, I'm inviting these friends to come stay with me any time they like.