SWAMP THING IN THE HOUSE.

Aiiiiight, before we begin, if you haven't read my post from yesterday, please take a minute now and read it so you can get a sense of exactly what I'm fuckin dealing with here. I promise you it's totally worth your time.

Back? Fuckin crazy, right? Did I tell you??
Ready for the next chapter?
Ok, good.

I woke up this morning and laid in bed for a while, debating whether or not to put any effort into cleaning my house for Camille's visit so I don't have to hear her point out just how fuckin slovenly I am. Like I need to be reminded.

And I thought, FUCK NO. You fuckin show up at my HOUSE and invite yourself over THE NEXT DAY, you get what you fuckin get, ya little bitchlet.

I'd practiced my lines. I was totally prepared for Camille to say "Sarah, don't you ever clean your house??" And my out loud response (which I was reeeeeally hoping to be able to say in front of Swamp Thing herself) was going to be,

Well, Sweetheart, when you don't give me very much TIME to fucking GET READY, this is how it is.

And my inside-my-head-voice would say, And if you don't like it, missy, you can walk your bratty ass the 1.02 miles back to your OWN house, where it's clean. So either shut the fuck up or get the fuck out. Your choice.

I was confident as I pulled on my Power Panties this morning. I even passed on the Xanax. I went into total Game Face Mode. Don't for a minute think I'm above kicking a 6-year-old's ass. I'm not. I'm a nonconfrontational pussy, I know, but I'm pretty sure I can mess up a 6-year-old if it came down to her or me.

The whole time I was in the Odyssexy on my way to drop Tito off, my mind was drifting between remembering the brilliant line I'd come up with and experimenting with just how I was going to deliver it, and the thought of seeing Anti-Stella for the first time after she read my last post. And let me just say, she hugged me just a little longer than usual... kidding.

So I came back from dropping Tito off at school, and...

THE SWAMPMOBILE WAS WAITING IN MY DRIVEWAY.

Not at 9:30. At 9:12.

So, apparently her house is not only missing a PHONE, it's also missing a FUCKING CLOCK. What is she, fuckin Amish?
(fuckin Amish sounds funny, doesn't it?)

So I park and get out and I'm trying to get Camille into the house as quickly as possible without opening the door wide enough for Swamp Thing to sneak in behind me. I shuddered as I felt her cold boney hand on my back and heard the gravel in the blender:

Can I be nosey??

Huh?

I just wanna see your backyard!

And kids, I have to confess to you that for half a second, the petrifying thought that she had somehow stumbled across paragraph three of yesterday's entry quite literally stopped my heart. Then I realized that she meant my ACTUAL backyard. The one behind my house.

Um, sure...

Would have been WAY funnier if I had just dropped trow right then and there, wouldn't it? I totally should have. But anyway, I brought her inside and began speed-walking toward the back door. She stopped.

Oh, Sarah!! I LOOOOOVE YOUR DINING ROOM!!! It's probably just as big as... (almost in a stage whisper) well, it may even be BIGGER than mine...

It is.

I explained that the hideous wallpaper in the dining room came with the house, I always feel obligated to point out to visitors that the orange and green Bird Of Paradise print was SO not my choice. I don't know why I care, really. I did keep that shelf paper in the pantry.

Then she stepped across the entryway into the living room. She touched my furniture. She patted my ottoman. She squished my pillow.

Get your hands off my stuff, sister.

Oh, you've got SOOOO much ROOOOM!!!!

I wished I had taken a Xanax or three. I wished I could have had ample time to somehow acquire and train a pet rat to scamper across my living room floor on cue.

Meanwhile, Swamp Thing Junior is running through my house screaming, BYE, MOM!! BYE!!! GO, MOM!!!!! YOU CAN LEAVE NOW!!

My sentiments exactly. Get the fuck out so I can blog about you. My vast readership is eagerly awaiting an update. Only this would be the time she DIDN'T bend to her daughter's will.

Just a minute, Camille! I just want to see Miss Sarah's cute new house!

Not the backyard anymore, THE HOUSE. I fuckin knew it. But I'm still trying to lead her through to the patio door as quickly as possible without physically dragging her by the hair.

Oh, the backyard's right this way...

(Gasp) IT THAT THE MASTER BEDROOM?
ON THE FIRST FLOOR???

Um, yeah...

(Gasp) And do you LOVE it???

Actually, we...

CAN I JUST PEEK???

Yeah. She peeked. In both of my walk-in closets.

She saw my yarn stash, and my bras hanging from my doorknob. If I'd known she'd be stickin her head in my bedroom, I'd have left some kinky sex toys out on the bed or something. I wished we had a trapeze in there. And shackles on the wall. And a stripper pole. And a disco ball. And strobe lights. And a smoke machine.

By now it's 9 fuckin 40, and we're still not in the backyard. FUCK.

So I finally got her out of my bedroom and beelined it toward the patio door. Our patio is a mess, but it's been raining for like a month straight, so I didn't feel that bad about it.

She came out and took a gander at my glorious backyard. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but her house is on the side of a huge hill so her "backyard" is basically her driveway and a really steep slope that's covered in brush where no kid could ever actually play.

They can't play soccer, can't roller skate, can't ride bikes because they're on top of this ridiculous hill that wears me out walking up it. I park on the street and walk up so I don't have to either back the van out or turn around in the driveway. So I can understand why she'd be envious of the yard that we got with this house. It's nice and flat. And fenced. And we have nice neighbors who take care of their yards too. It's a park-like setting, really. I love it.

See, I pretty much summed up the backyard and its awesomeness for you in about three sentences, right? She went ON and ON about how nice it must be to have such a great yard where the kids can play.

Yeah, I said (just to be twatty), it IS nice. It's great. That was one of the things that was reeeeally important to us when we were looking for a house.

Like most people with three kids.

We're looking forward to the warmer weather, so R can barbecue on the built-in gas grill that came with the house, too.

Stab. Twist.

She admired my Magnolia Tree. And she thought the other tree I have by the patio might be a Weeping Cherry Tree. The only thing she saw wrong with my backyard (and I KNEW there'd be something) was that my tallest tree has a knothole in it. And of course you know that means the whole tree could rot out and land on my house. So I'm gonna need to keep an eye on it. Thanks.

We stood out on the patio for several minutes. I wished it would rain. I wished for a house to fall on her from out of the sky, like in The Wizard of Oz. I wished a fuckin Winged Monkey would snatch her up and fly away. I smiled slyly to myself as I imagined her flailing helplessly in the Winged Monkey's grasp and the sound of a gravelly blender trailing off into sweet, beautiful silence.

Then we came back inside, and she stood in my kitchen for a full ten minutes. And I swear I was trying to take good mental notes for blogging purposes, but for the life of me, I can't remember how she got onto the subject of varicose veins.

Oh, wait, I remember. I said something about how I usually eat standing up. It's funny, really. On our vacation, we parked the Uplander and I stepped outside to eat my lunch standing in the parking lot. She mentioned that she also rarely eats sitting down, and coupled with her retail job (at a store I don't shop at anymore), all the time on her feet had given her HORRRRRRIBLE varicose veins.

Now you're all visualizing Swamp Thing and her varicose veins, aren't ya? Well, if I had to suffer that visual, y'all are gonna have to suffer along with me.

And then she told me about her sister in law and how her varicose veins were so bad she had to have surgery, and then about two months later she had these horrible, painful clots and her legs were so swollen and purple she couldn't feel them, so she went back to the surgeon and you know what he told her? He told her there was Nothing. He. Could. Do.

Ever pray for a whole swarm of cockroaches to crawl out of the woodwork and dance across your kitchen, wearing little bitty top hats? I'm gonna guess not. Well, I HAVE.

Seriously, why would she (or anyone, frankly) think that was an appropriate topic of pleasant converstion? Like I wanna HEAR that? How am I benefitting from this information? Ick. Just, ick.

I have never met anyone so unbefuckinlievably ill-mannered. She has absolutely no concept of how to function in fuckin polite society. How could she have gone her entire life with NO ONE ever showing her how normal people behave? I mean, I'm no Emily fuckin Post, but show some basic fuckin etiquette, Bitch!

Show a little fuckin respect for people's time and privacy. How basic is that? Seriously.

I would actually love to know if she treats everyone like this, or if I'm the lucky one. I guess she thinks we have some sort of especially close relationship, although I can't imagine what I might have done to give her that impression, other than give in to her ambush playdate requests. Maybe she's figured out that the only way she can get people to say yes to her is if she fuckin backs them into a corner and scares the crap out of them.

This too-niceness bullshit is a total fucking curse. I'm tellin ya.
I'm such a fucking pussy, all I could do was wish for crazy shit to happen. That's the only defense I have. Pafuckinthetic.

She left at 10:05.

Thank God I drew the line and didn't show her the upstairs. I might have accidentally pushed her down, just like Baby Jane. Oops.