The candlelight dinner OF DOOM

Oh, my Readers. I don’t know whether I will ever recover from hosting a lovely dinner party for my friends, Ethel, Myrna, and her husband with male pattern balding, Harry. You see, when I sent the invites, I did NOT know that Harry was having an affair with his secretary Robert. So I got equipped in many bottles and some microwave dinners, and prayed nobody would come.

Long story long, Harry arrived with Robert. Robert looks stunning. Think Denzel Washington, but young, and also more like Lebron James, but less tall, and also in a suit. And with a shaven head. Same as Harry. Turns out that apart from a bump that I hope is benign Harry looks quite good with his head shaven. Which was shocking already. So. They arrived half an hour early, in vicious moods, to explain at me (mansplain? gaysplain?) that they were in luuuuuurve and their romance was perfect and serious, and then when they noticed an unusual sound coming from the dining room the topic has changed to me being a bad friend and a gossip betraying (ME! Harry cheated, but I am the betrayer!) my best friend. The unusual sound was Myrna growling “bastards! bastards, both of them! let go of me, Gunther, Ethel, I will tear their innards out with my teeth!” because they arrived 45 minutes early, not to miss a chance to tell me many, many times that they are not talking to me and will not say a word to me ever again, until I was about to ask them to please stop talking to me, but I was interrupted by the arrival of Harry and Robert.

(At this point I excused myself, as in ran away, to put Lassie in the spare bedroom. I was tempted to remain there myself.)

Things didn’t go up from there.

I heated the dinners twice as long as I should (I am joking, because humour is the only antidote to bitter tears I am swallowing in my throat right now) because the atmosphere was frosty. Who knew that all of them could either sit silently and without moving, except Harry and Robert holding hands on the table so you couldn’t possibly miss it, which must have been very uncomfortable but of course they were making a statement, unless one of them came with an extremely piercing jab? (Example – Robert, who is a gay homosexual, saying “I always admire a beautiful woman who knows how to dress well, so I am glad Karen is here” to Myrna, which was kind of nice to me, except I knew he didn’t really mean it and then I was the one to pick up the salt shaker she threw at him, and this is a nice example) (Okay, one more example, Ethel looking rather frostily at Harry and Robert, then nodding towards Gunther, who looks like Onslow and Goldilocks had a child, and saying – “how weird it is that some men lose their hair as fast as they lose their wives, who have very good lawyers” and then Harry saying “we have a pre-nup” and Myrna saying “prove it” and Harry going a bit purple, because she knows where it is and he doesn’t, and I wouldn’t be surprised if where it was was in the shredder) (Only one more example, Ethel saying to me “this is such a classy, lovely dinner, wish you invited more classy people, rather than heartbreaking thieves with zero respect for God-given institution of marriage” and Gunther going all puffed-up because he felt classy all of a sudden, and it was very hard to stop myself from explaining to him what she really meant) (Okay, and there was also this bit where Myrna started sobbing and snotting, using my tablecloth to wipe her face, and mumbling incoherently, while Robert, who drank water, looked at her with such a mixture of pity and disdain that it rivalled only Harry’s)

With complete honesty, I am not sure right now whether I even have any friends left. But this still wasn’t the worst. As Myrna started yelling at Harry, he yelled back, Ethel was yelling at Robert, who just sat there and stared at everyone classily, and I started yelling at everyone to be quiet, I (barely) hear the doorbell and there is the police who came, because my beloved neighbour Vasoline with her plastic lawn called about a loud fight between a group of people next door, including threats of murder, and the problem is, she wasn’t even lying. On the plus side, this shut up everyone but Myrna, who kept sobbing at the policewoman, and I worried Myrna would be arrested for disrespect, but it turned out that the policewoman’s husband was also a cheater and a liar, and so Harry was taken away in handcuffs (!!!!) to remain “safe” (actually, the policewoman might have had a point) for twenty-four hours in a prison cell where he was definitely either very careful not to drop his soap or kept dropping it over and over, awaiting reaction from the many murderers and kidnappers surrounding him. I don’t know, because it’s not like I can call him or Myrna and ask innocently, and after Ethel accused me of being a gossip, I am definitely not calling her to get some gossip like a gossip that Ethel is herself.

I am in absolute shambles and tatters right now, my dear Readers. Gunther fell asleep mid-fight, because apparently Aldi Strong beer is actually quite strong. My sherry bottle disappeared when Ethel passed by it, which is not that I am suggesting she stole it, but I am currently working on an epic fantasy grim dark romantic historical novels and having done my research I am now convinced magic really exists. I just wished magic would have stolen the bad sherry, not the good one I kept in my cabinet behind all the other bottles that I bought for my lovely guests. (Robert had taken a look at the whiskies, yes, two, which I had proferred, and said in not-unlike-Vasoline’s condescending tone that actually he would just like some water. So I don’t splash tens of pounds on super-duper Jack Donalds or Famous Goose, did he bring anything other than yelling (okay, Robert wasn’t yelling, he mostly did the staring and occasional stiletto in the face, which I mean metaphorically)? No, the answer is, my dear Readers, he did in actual fact not.) I ended up drinking my not-good-enough whisky with currant juice and if your guests are being arrested enough, desperation will make you do things like this.

I don’t dare even get out of the house, because I know Vasoline is standing by the window all day waiting for a chance to trot towards me with a comment or twenty that she had way too much time to prepare about how my horrible loud dog (Lassie was simply trying to save my life! I didn’t pick the spare bedroom because it shares a wall with Vasoline’s bedroom and even if, who goes to sleep before 11 p.m.?!) and murderous friends terrorise the whole neighbourhood. So Gunther takes care of Lassie’s business, while I am drowning (metaphorically) in shame. I am now officially the one person in the neighbourhood who organises parties of the sort where it gets so loud and violent police must intervene and arrest one of the guests for threatening to murder his wife with napkins (I removed most objects from the table without really thinking what I was doing with them, and this is how I put dirty cutlery in my underwear drawer instead of throwing it away because it was plastic and I bought it especially so that I could throw it away) as she screams about biting through Robert’s throat while Robert sits in peace, crossing his arms on his chest, which as I noticed once he took off his suit jacket is quite well developed, and looks at her in a way that would make me want to bite through his throat as well. I can’t get over the fact that this really happened. I can’t even accuse Vasoline of lying or making things up or exaggerating.

I have to move. I’d say I also need a fake identity, but in a way I already have one due to living in cognito in literary circles (which is why I am not invited into any) and at some point a woman has too many identities to keep track of each of them. Actually, I just understood why Vasoline’s lawn is plastic.

Exhaustedly and criminally yours,

Karen xoxo