Party Prep

When one throws a party, one must sufficiently prepare. This includes the cleaning, decorating (if one has such energy), and food prep. The place was clean enough. I swept. Nevin mopped. And then Nevin went to work. Yep she did. Friday all day and Saturday all day.

So? one might ask? One wouldn't ask if one knew me. What Nevin's absence meant was that I was in charge of essentially preparing the entire thing. That's not what I had a problem with.

First of all, I had to go to the grocery store. I hate grocery stores. I don't know what to do in them really. Yeah, you buy food in them, I'm not dumb. But I stand in aisles and just sort of look at everything. Everything. The little soups, sprinkles for frosting, muffin mix, and gardening gloves. Nevin left a list on the board, a short one I thought, so I didn't write anything down. When I got to the store, I grabbed a basket rather than a cart, because the latter represents a major time investment, not to mention money, because one might feel one has to fill it up. I would make everything fit in the basket.

And off I went. Standing in front of the muffin, cookie, brownie mix with no intention of buying any of it. Just wanted to look. Approaching me from the left was a man, follwed a good distant by his girlfriend or wife or girl friend or whatever. She was a girl. But she was walking really slowly. She had no intention of buying anything, either, so there was technically no reason for her to be walking so slowly. And it seemed as though she slowed down when she got to the muffin, cookie, brownie mix with no regard for my interest in it. I watched her walk by. It was annoying.

I then left the baked goods and went to another aisle. On my way, I noticed a kid, probably about nine or so (it's all the same to me), scanning items in the price-check machine. That's nice of him, I thought, lending such a hand to whatever adult he might have been there with.

I headed down the household items aisle. Standing there, looking at the mops and stuff, just to look, there they came again. The man and the woman. Following me. Fuck. I had to break up the order of my aisle browsing. Finally after ditching the stalker couple, I ended up in the half and half section. There were a few people there so I stayed back and waited my turn. One of the people was this really old guy. Old. Crouched-over-the-milk old. Victorian England old. Big-glasses-on-his-face old.

I watched him for a few minutes. He was picking up half gallons of Vitamin D milk, one after the other. He looked on each side of each carton, drying off the bottom, then, so he could look at it. I'm sure he was looking for the expiration date, but he began to pick them up more and more frantically. By now the other people were gone, so I moved closer to the half and half I was looking for. But I kept watching him, trying to get a better look now that he was only about four feet to my right. And there he was, scanning each carton of milk with aplomb. "Sons of bitches!" Ok, it might be time to get away from Crotchety. But I had to get my half and half first. So I picked it up and, without thinking, looked at the bottom just as he was doing to his own cartons. I got out of there.

I went up the last aisle, finally almost finished buying good's for tonight's situation. And there was the kid again, this time with a friend. But this time he wasn't holding products up to the scanner, he was sticking his tongue under it. I smiled. "You're tongue's gonna fall off," I said as I walked by. He smiled.

I really really hate grocery stores.

That was pretty much all there was to the party prep. At least I thought. There are the little things that usually fall through my prep cracks. The things I never think of. The things I ultimately never have to concern myself when throwing a party. With Nevin gone, it was all on me. Do I line up the crackers on the plate? Do I want to even use a plate? Do I put the salsa a bowl? Do I have clean bowls? Candles in the bathroom. A fresh roll of toilet paper. The stressful stuff.

But I'm not done. I have to go put my speakers out in the living room. And empty the dishwasher. And cook my dinner. Yes, cook. At least I'm dressed.