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Show ey WASATCH COUNTY September ic 1999 | COURIER - Keeping Up Appearances is More Than > Just a British Comedy Opinion by Jean Croasmun, Courier Staff i 3 ee the majority of this week | sweeping dirt under the rug, literally. For whatever reason, everyone seemed to choose this week: to drop by. Not that that was a bad thing. soteahiele on | the floor. Otherwise, no one would believe we lived like that. I learned that little trick in hink: school — intentionally messing the house to make it look like you hadn’t just cleaned. It’s the same theory as dressing down for parties or being late for all job interviews. By all accounts, we’ve been in the new house for over a month and we should be ready. But then I looked © at my kitchen floor. “I can’t let people know we live like There’s nothing more-uncool than “Really?” I said. “I don’t know how that got there.” Andi truly, I didn’t. I mean it was hard to keep up with what 150 brain-cell deficient fellow older. And bedside, or a half-eaten burrito mak- my senior year in high school. Being the good child, they trusted me. So ing its own way out the door (okay, that one might matter). older and realized that she just shouldn’t do. Eventually the person we impress will catch us off guard and we'll be forced to show our true character, thus blowing every perfect-impression with just one reallife incident.. And if someone can only accept us as perfect, do we really want to be accepted at all? doesn’t matter than there might be a My parents went out of town a lot few dishes in the sink, a glass by the after the kegger we'd have every time my parents left town, a couple of friends would hang out and help me scrub down the house. That kept my good favor in my parents’ eyes, our us as some superhuman freak is a difficult task, and maybe one that we from my mother, no one really cares about how sloppy my house is. It My. mothet had that oes ae I was a child. I always thought she kept an immaculate house until I got with Impressing others with the image of aside looking like you care. to deal into a big, greasy burger and scratch our naked heads. I’m grown up, or maybe just chronologically Ne -have ~ breath. When really all we want to do is turn on some hideous music, bite the time. this.” shoved everything in a drawer and cleaned those out once a yeat. one will high school students were doing all Now : Yet; as a whole, we spend so much | witht Hoe ve ‘ ? || i | a time worrying about what people — So next time someone comes by, I’m think of us instead of worrying about I don’t have enough drawers. just going to leave my house as is. being ourselves. We eat very little at No sweeping, no dusting, no stuffing | lunch so no one knows we're pigs; So instead, | vacuumed, threw things until Ma wised up and commented | we hide Bay City Rollers 8-tracks closets. They can take me like | am in closets, closed off rooms and that the house always seemed to because people can’t think we like | or leave me. I don’t care. shoved anything too large to find a look better when they got back from > them. We buy “personal-hygiene” place for into my office because no No, wait. Looking at my calendar, their trip than it did before they left. products in stores we don’t normally one would expect it to be clean in buried under the layers of sedimenshop in because people don’t need to. there. And we rushed and we hurSoon after, I stopped cleaning so tary funk in my office, I realize that ’ know that much about us. We wear ried and we nearly killed each other much. A few trips (and keggers) the next person scheduled to set foot | makeup to hide our imperfections, in the process making the house later, I stopped cleaning at all. in my house is my mother. Forget. toupees to mask our age, break wind look good, but not too good. At | “There’s popcorn behind the toilet,” everything I said. Pve got to start in private (or blame it on the dog), least one pillow needed to. be left cleaning now. Nevermind. and swear off onions and garlic so no my mom said. rumpled and a newspaper had to be | A) TU ® Sports. Frames e Golfer Gifts e ‘Fisherman’s rae taee NICE MWYENY $ 654-5370 + itd DON Del Family Mexican Restaurant 1050 S. Main « Heber City + 657-0600 — 42 W. Main « Midway + 654-0805 Daily Lunch & Dinner Specials ING FREE DESERT i | MIDWAY LOCATION ONLY ; Buy One Lunch or Dinner. Get Another at Half Price _ Offer Good Sunday-Thursday Dine In Only « Not Applicable to Take Out Paradise All You Can Eat Ribs Every Thursday Night Pe Present This Coupon Good For: : Fun Hunter’s with purchase of any entree offer expires September 30 4 : ete ed 1984 BASKETS AND GIFTS INC. 52 West 100 North 657-0554 ie www.reckymountainbaskets.com “= |