There are certain imponderables to my life. I don’t understand how the blades on a ceiling fan that is never turned off can get dusty. I wonder how three cats and a dog, none of which move very much or very often, can deposit hair on every horizontal surface in the house. And I wonder why, after more disastrous dinner parties than I can count, I still invite people to dinner.
Generally, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about pet fur, not even when we have company, since my entire family and all of my friends have pets of their own. They know, as I do, that pets can shed faster than I can vacuum. It’s on those rare occasions that someone who is, impossibly, both petless AND well groomed arrives that I get uneasy.
If they are bold enough to mention that they are covered in fur I have three stock responses: I can apologize so profusely that they drop the subject just to shut me up. I can fix them with a frosty glare and say, “The cats live here, you don’t,” which results in uncomfortable silences over desert. Or I can silently hand them the lint roller and assume they know what they can do with it.
And so it was that when a visiting colleague from New York City came to town, inviting her to dinner at home never crossed my mind. But when she made several pointed comments about how she longed for a home cooked meal I felt compelled to invite her, as well as other coworkers, to dinner on the spot.
My colleague is 50-ish and tedious: she is a tremendous snob and enjoys lording it over we mere mortals. She is one of those New Yorkers who believes that everywhere else in the country is a province. She lives in an immaculate Upper East Side apartment with neither children nor pets and is legendary for her grooming. She is also going through a rather severe Change and tells complete strangers about her hot flashes. When she rang the doorbell at 7:59 for an 8:00 dinner, dressed from head to toe in what looked like black cashmere, I knew I was in trouble.
Conversation before dinner was strained, as it always is with this woman, and I kept refilling the wineglasses in the insane hope that my coworkers would loosen up. It was when my colleague got up from the sofa and made her way to the dining room that I discovered that our yellow Lab had been sleeping on the sofa again: From the back she looked like she was wearing a gold mohair suit.
During dinner things began to get better until my colleague remarked, frostily, that the food would be wonderful if only it was hot, while she looked pointedly at the ceiling fan spinning over the table. Cursing silently, I turned the fan off, knowing full well what was going to happen: Our old house does not have an air conditioning vent in the dining room, so immediately the room began to get very warm.
It did not take long for our menopausal houseguest dressed in black cashmere to notice. I ignored her as she started to dab her moist forehead with her napkin. “Are Florida homes always this warm in August?” she finally asked, looking at the fan again.
With the knowledge that my worst fears were about to be confirmed I turned the fan back on, covered my wineglass with my hand, and waited. As the blades slowly began twirling, a confetti-like rain of pet hair slowly wafted down, covering plates, glasses and one stunned menopausal woman. Smiling inwardly, I got up and handed her a lint roller, resisting the urge to tell her what to do with it.