HI! YOU MUST BE SOMEONE I'VE NEVER MET IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! C'MON IN!!

...Or ... you know...it's winter. I'm not exactly sure what a chill in the air is supposed to mean.

Anyway...GAWD!! I am sooooo exhausted.

We got up at 5:30 yesterday morning on a freakin' Saturday to clean house and begin cooking.

Keep in mind...the house was already "clean". We just needed to straighten up the kitchen, mop, clean Andrew's playroom, make beds, and generally straighten up the house.

For some ungodly reason, we "cleaned" from 5:30 a.m. until 6:15 p.m.

The party started at 6. Our first guests were our neighbors across the street ... I'll be damned if I know their names. Susie didn't know them either, which was obvious when it came time to introduce them to the second guest, one of Susie's co-workers.

"Betty, this is .... our neighbors. Neighbors ... this is Betty."

The neighbors said "Hi, how you doing?" and never introduced themselves by name.

For all intents and purposes...they may not have names.

Finally ... finally ... I use my patented method of finding out people's names without looking like a complete and utter dumbass while those people are sitting on my couch.

"Yo...what the fuck's your name again?" I asked, scrunching up my face in their general direction.

They told me and I'll be damned...it wasn't even close to what I thought it was. It was Sheila and Rob. I thought it was Elizabeth and Boss Hogg.

...I really...REALLY need to get my hearing checked.

After that, a cavalcade of people showed up. Some people from Susie's work, some people from my work, more neighbors, some friends, and people from the church.

We had prepared a bountiful feast for everyone. We had three huge trays of cookies...a crock pot full of sweet and sour meatballs, a crock pot full of those little sausages in barbecue sauce (which prompted one grown man to keep saying "I LOVE my weenies!" while he ate them. I think the man's mentally disturbed), Fritos and Tostitos, three different dips, Haystacks (some candy thing Susie made), six bags of assorted chocolate candy (Dove chocolates, anyone?) eggnog, Captain Morgan's spiced rum for the eggnog, punch, mixed nuts, M&Ms, and sausage balls.

We probably had between 50-60 people show up.

...We STILL have enough food to feed Texas in our kitchen.

People were just TOO polite when it came to the food.

By the end of the night, I was BEGGING people to drink the eggnog. I had bought four gallons of the thick, phlegm-like drink.

I still have three gallons left.

And I probably drank a half gallon myself.

The kids in attendance weren't shy. One little boy ate about half a crockpot of weenies himself.

I think that the reason I had so much to offer is simple.

The threat of Pervy's family coming over.

Susie admitted to me yesterday morning that she had invited them but "didn't know" if they were coming.

Hello?

Did you mention there would be free food here?

...Then they'll be here at 5:59 p.m.

Amazingly, they never showed. Maybe they caught Pervy wacking off into his mom's panties and they decided to call a family prayer session in hopes of driving the demons out of the little androgynous fucker.

Who knows?

All I know is...I planned the food supply around THEIR appearance, knowing that they have never been taught the skills of social acceptance when eating in someone else's home.

I fully expected to have them show up and dive face first into the crock pots, coming up with mouthfuls of meatballs just like on "Fear Factor".

Alas, it wasn't meant to be.

Something tells me that they knew I'd buy a ton of food and will just happen to drop by later on this afternoon to take some of it off our hands.

Now then...for the highlights of our Holiday Open House...

...None.

C'mon...it was a Holiday Open House, fer chrissakes. It was about as entertaining as a Mariah Carey Film Festival.

Although at one point ... I'm in the kitchen talking to a guy from church that I barely know.

We're both tipping back the rum and eggnog and just shooting the shit and he brings up something about speeding tickets. Which, of course, prompts me to start babbling about my speeding ticket from the other day.

"You going to pay it or contest it?" he asked.

"I think I'm going to contest it," I said, and then explained my reasoning.

"That's a good idea," he said.

Then...for some unknown reason...I dunno...I guess we clicked or something ... but I started babbling about downloading this book on line by a former traffic cop who told me how to beat the ticket in court and how it's my American right to at least contest it and not just lie down and pay the ticket and let my insurance rates climb because all speeding tickets are are a quick and efficient fund-raising program for the city, blah blah blah.

He agrees the entire time while listening to me.

Then he starts talking about how he hates writing speeding tickets.

Not "paying". "Writing".

He continues on how somebody has to be going 90 mph before he writes a speeding ticket and agrees that me going 60 in a 45, especially on the street I was driving down, was an obvious ploy to make some money for the city.

I never asked until he left.

"Susie," I said. "What does Bill do for a living?"

"He's a state trooper," she said. "Pretty high up on the force if I'm not mistaken."

Oh.

Well, color me embarrassed.

Other than that...kind of a laid back evening.

Today, we've got church and then....we are RESTING.

Tomorrow...gotta go to work, but I'm just not expecting it to be like a regular day because then we have the rest of the week off.

Plus, the CEO had a meeting that Edweird attended on Friday. At the end of the meeting he said something along the lines of "For those of you who will be sick on Monday...happy Holidays."

Which almost sounds like...for those of you who want to have a whole week off and decide to call in and fake cough into the voice mail system, you're smarter than the dumbasses who actually show up.

I'm showing up anyway.

Because I'm a dumbass like that.

Well, I guess I have to go and eat a shitload of meatballs for breakfast and wash them down with a fistful of Nestle's Treasures with caramel.

Today's the day I flirt with landing in a sugar coma.

Eh.

It's the holidays.

Well...almost.

Eat up, my chubby little friends. It's the one time of year we can be pigs and have an excuse.

Ugh.

I've got heartburn already.

Adios.