Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Desperate Housewives of Westover Valley

I feel as though I've entered the TV show Desperate Housewives (except without the cheating or suicide or alcoholism, OK, so maybe it's not all that similar...). Anyway. Here's your characters: Me, the chatty woman with few secrets married to an MD, Alicia the smart witty one with the smart witty hubby, Alex the stubborn earthmother with Mr. Corporate finance guru, Candace, the all around nice one who's a part-time nurse with the genius child and distant husband, Sandy, the quiet one who used to teach college ESL and the foreign husband. Picture suburban South Texas, none of us with family nearby, all with busy toddlers.

As a general rule, we get along fine, until I open my mouth, and my storyline during the episode would go something like this: I get home from a holiday trip to find a message on my answering machine that tells me that Candace is no longer having her son's third birthday party on Sunday night (it's late Monday). Instead we're going to the minor league hockey game on Saturday. They have a luxury box with 16 tickets. I assume this is the new venue for the birthday party. I see Candace briefly the next evening, and she tells me that she has to buy one extra ticket so that Sandy and her husband can come.

The next morning, Candace calls to tell me that we, the MD and I and our son will be carpooling with Sandy, her husband and their son. Great - no problem. At this point, I am still working under the assumption that this is a birthday party. Alicia calls me later that afternoon and we are chit-chatting. I ask, "Hey, are you going to the birthday party on Saturday?" She says she hasn't heard anything about it, but that Sandy had asked her the same thing and they'd had the same awkward moment. We are both confused, and so I say that I can't think of any reason why she wouldn't be invited, and I'll call Candace to see what's up.

I leave a message for Candace who calls me back that evening to say that it isn't a birthday party at all, that they've nixed the party period. These tickets are not all for neighborhood people, but that her husband has invited most of the people and given her a specific number of people she could invite, and told her who was and was not permitted. I feel terrible that I've said anything, but pointed out that I had no indication that it was not just a change of venue for the party. She said yes, she and hubby would figure something out.

I get another call later. It's Candace telling me that she came clean about the non-party game to Alicia, and she wasn't offended (I didn't figure she would be), but she does open the conversation with, "So, if Alicia hates me, I can blame you, right? I don't actually think she cares, but if it were Alex, she'd never speak to me again". Well, am I responsible? I don't really think so, it was never apparent to me that this was not still a birthday party in a different location, and it turns out the only reason Sandy was invited was because she had already bought a present for the birthday boy...

I'm confused. And, I don't think Alex would be mad at all, I'm sure Alicia doesn't care either and won't hate Candace. The whole thing is weird, and I can't help feeling 100% responsible. I'm sure nobody cares, and things will be better tomorrow, but I still feel like an idiot that I opened my big fat mouth. It's just impossible, when people see and talk to each other as often as we do, to have something where more than one family is invited, but not all. I don't know. I guess that's just me.

P.S. Interweb - there will be a new baby boy to write about in here come mid-May!! More on that later!