Oh No! I'm Invited
Is it Really an Offer You Can't Refuse?
By Teri Gray Franta

Why is it that invitations we don't get can be as agonizing as the ones we do receive? We've all experienced the pain of not getting an invitation. Perhaps it was the holiday party that all of your friends received invites to, but not you. Then there was the time when several of your friends got together for a movie-without calling you. This always hurts, so we put on a good show. We say we were busy and wouldn't have been able to go anyway-even if we weren't and we could have. Sometimes not being invited is actually due to miscommunication. Someone was supposed to call, but forgot. Perhaps the invitation was truly lost in the mail. Other times, you just weren't invited. As hurtful as this is, there are times that I wish certain invitations had been lost in the mail, or someone had forgotten to make the call.

Holiday invitations may be the most hazardous of all. A few years ago, a friend invited my family to her home for Thanksgiving. She said, "Come for dinner, you'll have fun." I thought about it for a few days and decided that it would be nice to spend the day with friends instead of getting up at dawn and cooking and cleaning for hours. When I called her back to accept the invitation, I asked what I could bring. I expected her to have me bring something, but I was stunned when she said, "Great, there will be 22 of us. Can you bring an extra turkey, some rolls, two hot hors d'oeuvres and your famous creamed corn?" What could I do? I had already committed.

I got up at five in the morning on Thanksgiving Day and started stuffing the darn bird. Everything had to be cooked (and packed) for the hour-plus trip to our friend's home. Once we arrived, I never left the kitchen until it was time to leave. Of course, I was also the designated driver. Did I mention that I had to make the gravy and whip the potatoes because the hostess had a little too much pre-dinner vino? Why couldn't I bring the pies? Unlike her sister, I would have made sure that there were plenty of pumpkin pies to go around. I ended up with mincemeat. Adding insult to injury, I didn't get any of my turkey-or any leftover turkey for the traditional day-after sandwiches. And despite the aggression that I took out on that darn bird, it turned out quite nice…or so I was told.

Inviting relatives for extended visits can also invite disaster. One friend invited her parents to stay with her for a month. I tried to tell her that a month was a long time, but she was sure that everything would be perfect, and that her parents would help with some projects around her house. Let's just say that they completed plenty of projects, but very few were on my friend's "to do" list. The parents arrived on a Friday. On the following Monday, my friend left for work just as the painters arrived to paint the exterior of her house. She had chosen a nice mellow Tuscany mocha. Imagine her reaction when she arrived home to a bright yellow house. It seems that her parents felt that the brown was boring and decided to surprise her with something a bit more festive. Mission accomplished. Not only was my friend surprised (and appalled), she received a nasty letter from her Homeowners' Association for not using an approved color. Again, insult to injury. She had to pay to have her house painted over in her original, approved color. After she calmed down, my friend reasoned that it couldn't get any worse than this. Wrong.

Only two days after her house received the Easter egg treatment, she came home to find her mother bursting with pride. "Wait until you see your closet," said mom. Keep in mind that this friend has an enviable collection of shoes. They're stored meticulously in their original boxes, sorted by season and color. My friend actually hyperventilated as she ran to her prized walk-in closet. Then she burst into tears (which her mother mistook for gratitude) as she saw the plastic shoe holders her parents had attached to the walls. Her beloved Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahniks occupied every slot…sans boxes, of course. As she tried to calm down, my friend thought that perhaps she was overreacting. After all, she could take down the racks and put her shoes back in the boxes after her parents left. Not so much. Before she could ask where the boxes were, her still beaming mother gave her a receipt and the few bucks that her shoeboxes netted at the local recycling center. I'm sure you've heard the saying that likens out-of-town guests to fish-after a few days, they get a little stinky. My friend has refined the formula. She insists that after three days and two nights it's time for the fish to swim home. As you can imagine, Mamma and Papa Fish haven't been back to visit their daughter recently, nor are there any invitations on the horizon.

I've extended a few invitations that I regret. Like the time I invited my brother's girlfriend to housesit for a week. This involved feeding my cat twice a day and taking out the trash. Thank goodness, the girlfriend didn't take out the trash-or the cat would have starved.

It's really the informal social invitations that get me down. Spontaneity is probably my best (and worst) trait. Occasionally, I commit to going out, or having friends over, and then as the date gets closer, I begin to regret-and sometimes resent-the commitment. This is very common. When we make plans we're in the mood to do what we are planning to do.

This doesn't mean that when the date finally arrives that we're still in the mood for what we planned days, weeks or even months ago. I generally end up having a good time in spite of my reservations, but later is better than sooner in my book. I'm always up for the last minute trip or casual get-together. Be careful though. Waiting until the last minute is not without risk. You may end up alone. However, it's also exciting. Like reaching into a grab bag, you never know what you're going to get. Whatever it is, you have no time to dread it. You just do it. If you end up alone, then you can always catch up on a good book, rent that movie you missed with your friends, or enjoy some quality time with your significant other.

I was going to close this article here. I thought I had shared plenty of "invitation gone awry" examples-and then it happened again. I called a friend to ask when and where she wanted to meet for dinner to celebrate her birthday. We celebrate our birthdays together every year at a nice restaurant and we always split the bill. My bet is that we won't split the bill this year. My friend wasn't home when I called, so I left a message with her roommate. Evidently, something was lost in translation. My friend just called back and told me that she would love to have me take her out for her birthday. Another invitation gone awry and I'm sure I'll pay dearly. I do have some consolation. My house isn't Easter egg yellow, all my shoes are still in their original boxes, and my cat survived.

Teri Gray Franta is a freelance copywriter who lives behind what she affectionately calls the Orange Curtain. She also writes irreverently about baggage, butts, bickering, barking, mowing, edging, weeding, watering, garlic, poker, faking, fondue and you! Her readers have labeled her "The Sideways Chica," for her consistently ironic and sideways point of view. You can find more of her musings at www.herestohappywomen.blogspot.com.

Disclaimer: The names, and relationships, of the subjects mentioned in this essay, and other details, have been altered to protect the privacy of others, and for the health of the writer's friendships. Live, laugh, love...in that order. Everything else, just throw out with the garbage.