These four things will always be true…

Women who work or live together will ultimately sync up their monthly cycles to be miserable together.
No matter how good you are at hiding, PMS will always find you!
The one day you DON’T want attention from your cold and aloof cat will be the exact same day the cat decides that you are his entire reason for being.
Your husband will find any reason to avoid being in the same room with any of you!

I was informed last night that living in our house feels a lot like living in a reality TV show. Even the cat is starting to show off for attention! The only saving grace in that sentiment is that we are not actually being filmed. I tried to soothe the worries with a reminder that I do leave things out when I write the blog. I don’t share the most intimate details of our lives, just the amusing ones. And occasionally, some funny but frustrating moments. I don’t even mention certain people on a daily basis. I think my readers may even wonder who actually lives in my house. Maybe that’s part of the problem. People wonder about our lives. People have just enough information to form an opinion and maybe that opinion is not close enough to the reality for everyone’s comfort. Maybe it’s just a little too close.

Basically it comes down to this…not everyone loves the blog. I suppose that is to be expected. There is definitely the element of “intrusion” when you write a daily blog about your life and those involved in it. Not everyone wants to be involved. Not everyone wants to have their day to day lives chronicled in a public forum. This is something I have chosen for myself, I just have to be conscious of the fact that this was not something chosen by the family. I just don’t always know how to separate myself from everyone else.

So here goes…

I had an interesting day at the bank today—or rather an interesting day away from the bank today. I had an offsite client visit today with two colleagues. The three of us are quite friendly outside of work, so it made the appointment that much more interesting. We were able to dish about it afterwards without pulling any punches!

We had gone on interesting appointments before. And by interesting I mean gross. We once met a client for an appointment at their home office and had to tip toe around dog poop to get to the conference area. The client had a pair of dogs that were less than house trained, and wasn’t embarrassed by the evidence. We were somewhat horrified, but maintained our business decorum throughout the meeting.

Today was different. There was no doggy poop to step over, but there was a trash can stacked with beer cans and a cloud of what I HOPED was ordinary cigarette smoke. The man who welcomed us at the front door—“New York” they called him—was easily one hundred years old, with long gray hair that he wore in layers feathered around his face. He was dressed in a black shirt and formfitting black pants that left nothing to the imagination, and his feet were bare. Bare but filthy. He greeted us by speaking in a rumbling tone, “don’t mind my feet, it was hot.” And watching all the smoke pouring out the door as we stepped in, I had no doubt that it was hot in there.

My first thought when the door closed behind me was, “I am going to die of smoke inhalation.” Then I wondered if it was even legal to smoke in a public building anymore. Could I make a citizen’s arrest? Then I took in my surroundings and decided it might not be the best place to bring up that subject.

“New York” wasn’t the only odd character in this strange little circus. The business owner had completely forgotten that we were coming, and was a tad underdressed for the appointment. He was wearing a white undershirt and loose shorts, but that was not the most interesting thing about him. His hair caught my attention and I could focus on little else for the entire meeting. He had a buzz cut and bangs. The hair screamed “porn star”, and because he was otherwise unattractive as well, it was more so a dead giveaway. It’s a well known fact that men in porn are not at all good looking. They aren’t hired for their faces after all.

I started looking around the dismal office for other signs that may confirm that this so called “magazine” company was actually a poorly disguised front for a gay porn operation. I say gay porn only because, other than myself and my two colleagues, there were only men in the building—the client, “New York”, a few anonymous faces wandering in and out of different rooms, and a young musician that just happened to sell magazines despite being hailed by the others as a musical genius of the highest caliber.

I had this whole thing figured out. The musician was undoubtedly the guy who played the music for the filming. “New York” was the director. The client was the “talent” as they say, and obviously any one of the other guys milling around the fringes of the building were the co-stars and or extras.

At one point near the end of our conversation, the client mentioned going back to his reading after we left. One of my colleagues politely asked what he was reading. You would have thought she asked to see the back rooms! He struggled for several moments to come up with the name of a book, finally settling on a book about the aliens landing in Roswell, New Mexico. Riveting literature, I’m certain. I was even more convinced.

It was all we could do to keep from running from the smoke-filled building after making our farewells. One of us made the comment that we had all contracted lung cancer just by sitting in there. I’m not sure who said it, because I was definitely thinking and it could have been me. Being women, we couldn’t help comparing notes after we reached our cars and were out of earshot of the building. I wasn’t the only one who was suspicious of the client and his business. Everyone agreed there was something going on, and it wasn’t something found in a grocery store checkout line!

We’ve decided to ask for a full tour when we go back for the follow up visit. There is always a follow up visit. I will be on the lookout for camera equipment and costumes. My colleagues suggested we look for the bong too. They were certain there was a bong in that place somewhere. And someone suggested that it was entirely possible the smoke was clouding our thought processes more than normal. I don’t know. I wouldn’t know a bong from a bed pan. I’m just a boring writer with a bad case of PMS.

Until the next time…I’ll still be here if you’ll keep reading!