Yep, I stole that “Wisteria Lane” thing. You’ll be fine, Freakles.

How do I begin this saga… with the “playbill” invitation I was given weeks ago announcing this Stepford Block Party, the one I conveniently put under a ton of other papers I’m ignoring? Maybe with the second reminder, much like my HOA dues, that was handed to me by a cute, yet devious child that was not related to me except through dog walking? Regardless of the invitation that even contained a handy e-mail address to assist phone-phobic people like myself, I knew that the time had come to actually meet the neighbors I’ve been living near for almost four years.

Would they say something about Emo Boy’s lack of dog poo pickups?

Would they inquire about the shady switching of adult males in my house?

Would they ask if I was ever going to trim my bushes?

Ahem, not those bushes, the bushes in front of my house that I have claimed as one of two things nobody can touch because of the “nature” they provide me in the middle of Stepford. If they know about my personal bushes… well, obviously Stepford is more fun than I thought.

Do they somehow know of my blog and my distaste for everything they appear to stand for?

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I e-mailed the RSVP. We baked cupcakes (even numbered houses bring dessert!), slapped cherries on top and headed to the pool before the party. Then, I get this call…

“Melia, I was talking to the neighbors and they wanted a movie to show, someone to cook 600,000 pounds of meat and those two gold-dusted roasts in the freezer you’ve been stockpiling in case a client decides to bail and we have no food.”

Oh, ok. One day after his release from the hospital’s fear of certain death and plague, Freedom walks the dogs and suddenly, we are Stepford. FUCK. Oh, and yes, I’ll pick up veggies for kabobs since I’m the only vegetarian STILL and nobody likes our kind, especially in Stepford.

I get home, I shower and dress to show that I’m not only NOT as horrible as I appear while walking the dogs in the morning, but also not too showy as to get the ladies to suspect that the single chick is going to hone in on their men. I don’t know what to expect, this isn’t the PTA where back-biting and snide smiles are limited to an hour-long meeting… this was an entire night that involved alcohol and schmoozing. I am, as usual, totally clueless about how to approach people who may or may not appreciate tarot-astrology-reiki-feminist-geek-breeder talk.

Sigh. I need to move to Salem.

The kids were entertained by a blow-up waterslide. Freedom was entertained by a grill the size of a VW and the 600,000 pounds of meat and I was entertained by… well, at least I found out that my dog-walking friend was married, with two kids, because I missed that somehow.

Most of the party was spent attending to the children while my nanny cooked. The rest was making polite conversation with the cafeteria lady from the school and the Asian and Indian (in other words, non-Stepford) women who made awesome food and seemed as lost as I was. The “Stepford Moms” ignored me or asked me how I found my grill-master nanny while they chatted amongst themselves about their latest purchases/affairs/workouts. It was all I expected, and not much more, but the women I did get to talk to were cool, so it all worked out. I’ll never be the Talbots or Nordstrom hag, but at least I can blog about them, incognito, and laugh.

It is tempting, however, to foster the image of the neighborhood husband snatcher. Just because of that whole “Wisteria Lane” thing.

Heh.