July 16, 1997
With a big dinner-at-my-place date planned for last weekend, I finally broke down and field-dayed my apartment. (For those of you out there who didn't have the priviledge of serving in the Marines, "field-dayed" means I cleaned the place up a bit.)
Being a career bachelor, my concept of "clean" probably doesn't meet the standards set forth in most households. Come to think of it, it rarely met the Sergeant-Major's standards, either, as I recall.
Nonetheless, I tackled the task with enthusiasm, because I wanted to make a big impression on the woman I expected to have my children.
I started from the back and worked forward. The bedroom was easy — all the petrified socks went into the closet, clean sheets went onto the bed for the first time in three months, all the leftover dishes moved from the computer desk to the dishwasher, and I ran the vaccuum over the place.
Those of you with a mean streak will note that chihuahuas hate vaccuums. Rusty and Smedley hid for hours.
The bathroom proved to be a fairly easy task, too. A little bit of scrubbing, fresh toilet paper and one of those stick-up jobbies to make it smell all nice and unused.
The living room was also no problem, once I filled the dumpster up with all the old newspapers and tastefully stored various great works of literature in the closet atop the petrified socks.
With an hour remaining before The Goddess arrived, I tackled the kitchen. That's where the problems began.
For starters, some idiot allowed the dish-rag to get stuck in the garbage disposal. I now have 14 small dishrags instead of one large one.
After a few minutes of trying to remove the crusted-over stuff around the burners on the stove, I gave up and jotted myself a note to keep the lights off in the kitchen during our dinner.
After carefully loading the dishwasher, I turned it on. A minute later, after locking the door and mopping the floor, I turned it on again.
When I opened the refrigerator door, however, I was met by a committee with demands.
The ribs I'd barbecued six weeks ago presented me with a petition, demanding colder temperatures; the shrimp gumbo I'd had last weekend didn't have to present a petition, having left its indelible malodorous stamp on just about everything.
Still non-plussed, I started getting things laid out for the cookin'. After chopping the steaks out of the freezer, I wrestled the barbecue sauce away from a couple of onions who were experiencing growing pains.
Any thoughts towards having salad with dinner died when I opened that vegetable chiller at the bottom of the fridge and saw this cold, slimy green substance just kind of sloshing around in there.
When the knock came at my apartment door a short time later, though, I was ready.
"Hi! " I crowed as The Goddess peeked tentatively over my shoulder, hoping to get a glimpse of how I live. I stepped forward and pulled the door shut behind me.
"I made reservations for 7 at
the restaurant," I said with a firm smile. "We'd better hurry!"