Turning Into My Mother

I've always thought my mother was a bit off her rocker, needing the house to be perfect before anyone other than myself or my father set foot in it. When I was home for the holidays she insisted on "cleaning up" before one of my oldest friends came by for a quick visit, and for a moment I was horrified with visions of dusting and vacuuming. Fortunately, she only meant cleaning up the Christmas detritus from the living room, which was easily manageable.

But my birthday is coming up next week, and rather than do the same old "let's go to a bar and get drunk" routine, I decided to throw a party at my apartment, mostly because very few people have actually seen it since I moved in over a year ago, and I don't know how much longer I'll be able to afford it so I'd best show it off while I can!

I have no idea how many of the people I've invited will actually show up--I have always been one of those people who worries that they'll throw a party and nobody will show up, leaving them to look like a loser... another reason I haven't thrown one until now--but I suddenly find myself with an intense desire to put my best foot forward.

I have managed to survive just fine for the past year and a half without a toilet paper holder in my bathroom. Yet this afternoon I bought one at Home Depot because god forbid my guests know that, up until this week, the toilet paper has lived on the back of the toilet!

Going a step further, I spent half an hour on my hands and knees with a razor blade scraping globs of errant glue from my linoleum, a remnant of my landlord's horrific home-repair skills. They've always bothered me, making my floor look dirty even when freshly mopped, but it wasn't until faced with the prospect of someone else being bothered by them that I actually got around to doing anything about it.

On one hand, perhaps it's a good thing.

If it gets me to finally unpack the ONE BOX that hasn't been unpacked since I moved in, and maybe even actually hang all the pictures stored within it, well, then, it's definitely a good thing.

But that doesn't change the fact that, in yet another way, I have turned into my mother.

Some things are just inescapable.