Meet the Parents (or My Not-So-Great Evil Plan)

So. I'm dating this guy.

Let's call him The Professor.

We've been seeing each other for a few weeks - dinners, lunches, drinks after work. That sort of thing. And of course, if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you can guess that my family is all kinds of curious about this guy.

I've tried to maintain some boundaries, but you know, it gets exhausting.

So on Saturday night, when Mom, Dad and Anna decided to go out for Chinese, and Anna and Dad mocked me and suggested I call The Professor, one would think I would've brushed them off and readied myself for an endless supply of Mongolian beef.

But then...I had an idea. A brilliant, wonderful, awful idea. If I invited The Professor to dinner, I could get it out of the way - they could meet him, he could meet them, and like ripping off a band-aid, it would be quick and painless. They wouldn't have any opportunity to plan something horribly embarrassing - like an interrogation that would make the Spanish Inquisition look like a Q&A.

I didn't think about the fact that I might scare the poor professor out of his wits when I rang him up and asked him straight out if he wanted to join us. Nor did I think about how he might feel when I poo-pooed him when he said he hadn't shaved. Or scoffed at his insistence that he needed to jump in the shower. Or sent him a text telling him to keep it cas and throw on jeans and a t-shirt. Or gave him just about 20 minutes to be there.

What I did think about was the smug relief I felt when he arrived, well-groomed but not overly much. And when he offered everyone a nice handshake and a smile, I thought my evil plan had worked. And when Anna struck up a conversation with him about college football, and he made her laugh, I thought, I am a genius.

Ah, pride goeth before the fall.

In the parking lot, my mom invites The Professor back to our house. And that's where my plan - quickly but precisely executed thus far - began to show signs of failure.

I rode to the house with him and tried to brief him on what was most pertinent. Dad will tell you an embarrassing story about me. Oh, and he can't always hear, although he refuses to acknowledge it, so be prepared to repeat yourself. Anna's dogs are going to bark at you a lot - don't take it personally. Have I mentioned that we have a feral cat that no one can touch living in our house?

And then we arrived. And the dogs barked relentlessly, and The Professor seated himself stiffly on the edge of the recliner (whose sides have been torn to shreds by the feral cat). We realize that the other cat, Ranger, isn't at the door waiting for his dinner - probably because one of the dogs chased him into the woods earlier that day. Stay here, I tell The Professor. And I leave him in the den in the tattered recliner to watch the beginning of the football game with my dad, and I take a Maglite and go into the woods with Mom to search for Ranger.

A few minutes in, Mom suggests we get a can of food. I breeze through the door, and he half rises, "Can I help you?"

"Um, no. Thanks. But, um, Ranger is, like, an autistic cat? He's special. You know, and he's a little bit skittish around strangers." I dash out again with a can of Fancy Feast.

And we find the cat at long last - Anna and I climbing through the underbrush to get him and carry him in with his solemn little face peering at The Professor like, "Who's that guy?"

Anna heads home and there's the awkward moment where we're all hugging her and telling her we love her and he steps forward and I cringe, thinking, Don't do it! Don't hug her. And he extends a hand and says it's nice to meet her.

Back inside, I tour him through the house - which, of course, was in no shape to receive visitors. When I flipped on the light in my room, I saw two things: the bra hanging on the bedpost and the tampon on the nightstand.

At halftime of the football game, I ask if he wants to take a walk. I take a deep breath, "I'm sorry about...well, the craziness," I say. "Welcome to the looney bin!"

He kind of laughs and I wonder what he really wants to say.

"I wish I could tell you that it's not usually like this." I pause. "But...you know, it kind of is."

He left shortly after that, and I closed the door behind me, leaned against it, shut my eyes and fully admitted that, in light of the control I lost over a simple evening's circumstances, there's no career for me in world domination.