At Least I'm Not Killing The Environment

I have to admit, my kids' social lives have probably suffered to some extent thanks to my crippling social awkwardness.

I'm scared of the other moms, I get nervous about my kids playing at other kids' houses, and I don't care much for someone else's offspring coming over to break stuff and eat all my food.

I know! I'm horrible!

I want to be That Mom, the one who always has a house full of random children and never runs out of snacks and doesn't mind when somebody spills red Kool Aid on the carpet or spits gum into the bushes. The one who invites the other moms in and makes a joke that everyone laughs at instead of shifting their weight and staring uncomfortably at the floor.

I'll bet that mom doesn't have to do an Emergency Whole-House Cleaning when she finally decides to host a playdate.

But of course I  did. Because naturally, when I finally called to invite my son's friend over, the only day that worked for his mom was THE NEXT DAY.

Keep in mind, we hadn't met in person yet. If she saw the natural state of my house, I can pretty much guarantee her darling boy would be immediately marched straight back to the car, which I guess wouldn't have mattered much to me because I'd already be dead from the embarrassment.

Thus the full house scrub-down.

However, the only cleaners I had around were "green" cleaners, when the filth in my house normally only responds to a chair and a whip, or heavy industrial solvents.

If you must know (Stop nagging me for all my valuable cleaning secrets!) it was the Elements All Surface Cleaner kit, containing three of the many available cleaning products from Clean It Supply, the largest green cleaning supply source on the innerweb. Don't try to hide it, I know you're impressed.

I was terrified the woman might ask to use the bathroom, so first I rushed the Organic Acid Restroom Cleaner (which manages to sound both earthy and  industrial) into our entirely too organic restroom, and spritzed it in the general direction of the hard water deposits on the sink. I could tell by the way the smell of it didn't burn the hair out my nostrils that it wasn't going to work... except it did!

Emboldened by my success, I used the glass cleaner on the mirror in case she wanted to see her reflection instead of the kids' toothpaste splatters - again, success!

Then the All Surface Cleaner was put to the test in the kitchen. Here we ran into some problems, as I encountered the following:

• milk poured on the counter four seconds after I wiped it off
• multiple snack requests
• baby shaking juice out of her "spill-proof" sippy cup onto the floor
• pretzel crumbs courtesy of curious on-lookers
• one "You missed a spot."
• no less than four "Why are you cleaning?"s

These interruptions resulted in limited kitchen cleaning success, though you can hardly fault the spray cleaner for that. Where my kids didn't undo my efforts, the stuff worked great - as a bonus, it smelled very faintly of pina colada, which helped with the escape fantasy I was living inside my head.

So, much to my surprise, the green cleaners actually cleaned  stuff, plus I didn't have chemical hands when the baby suddenly needed to be picked up rightnow, I didn't ruin my clothes like I usually do with bleachy cleaners, and my nose hair remained intact (okay, the upside of that last one is debatable).

Just in time, too - the kid and (more importantly, of course) his mom were due any minute. I surveyed the house and was pleased. It looked... as good as I could expect it to look.

I was sure to impress her!

Then I heard her pull in the driveway, and what did I see when I looked outside?

The people across the street were parking their car in the yard, narrowly skimming past their two dozen frothy-mouthed dogs, which were roiling around on the muddy ground with several younguns. Meanwhile, the adults set up lawn chairs and rolled a gigantic turkey fryer into the driveway.

I can't make this stuff up, people.

Let me repeat: no doubt to assist me with making a good first impression, my neighbors, for entertainment, were sitting in the driveway (which is on an incline, but I'm not even going to address the stupidity of putting a giant, flaming vat of oil on wheels at the top of a hill), in weather-beaten old lawn chairs to watch a turkey fry and possibly watch one or more of the dogs hump something.

It was like the Beverly Hillbillies had adopted the Bumpus hounds and relocated to my street.

Not the best way to impress a guest.

Luckily, she was very gracious and pretended not to notice. What really saved me, though, was the clean(ish)(er) house, and the fact that I still had the bottles of eco-friendly cleanser sitting on the table, highlighting my virtuous concern for the environment and whatnot.

I like to think she was silently dazzled by the fact that I care enough about the planet to use biodegradable green cleaners, so she gave me a pass on the pretzel crumbs and the Three Stooges action across the street.

Or maybe she was just waiting for me to offer her a pina colada. Hmm, I like her already.

UPDATE: The mom is still taking my calls, and Gerry was curious enough about "Organic Acid" that he used it to clean the toilet. Related: I'm now convinced these bottles have magical powers. Also, I was compensated for this post, but all my opinions remain my own, including the one I have of my neighbors.

The Top Mommy Blog button below probably has magical powers too, but you have to click it to find out for sure...