I am an indifferent housekeeper, but with two different family reunions being hosted here, on Thanksgiving Day and the Day After, I guess I should start getting things in shape for “people” to see.

However, I wish I hadn’t looked up at the ceiling just now. There are, to semi-quote Carl Sagan, billions and billions of spiders and ladybugs up there. I am assuming the spiders are corralling the ladybugs for later consumption. My main thought is, what if they let go of the stucco and start falling on my head, and eating a hole in my brain, or worse, crawling on tiptoe on top of those invisible hairs on my back, just out of my reach? How many bugs can one ceiling sustain before the clinging legs pull it down? Where are they coming from? Did we build our house over a cesspool, or a mass grave?

The spiders and ladybugs haven’t started falling yet. I mean, the kitchen floor is crunchy, but not with bugs. It’s crunchy with cereal. Nobody in this house can eat cereal without scattering it all over the floor. It’s a genetic quality we all share. Probably because only one of us ever puts milk in it. My husband is a freak. The rest of us like our cereal as God intended: coated with sugar, injected with red dye # 2, and shaped like cartoon characters. You know, natural.

And it was easier on my nervous system to suck up ladybugs and spiders with a vaccuum cleaner that had a bag in it. At least then I couldn’t see them partying through the clear plastic tank.

Pay no attention me my rants tonight. I am coming down with a cold, and nothing seems to help. You know there is something really wrong with the world when you can’t even get a buzz from your over-the-counter codeine cough medicine.

Plus, I live in the country, and there is no one near to hear my cries for help, when those bugs start to fall on my head.

And the nearest town is a real hoker; it couldn’t support a JoAnne Fabrics store, for cryng out loud. And a Waldenbooks lasted just under a year. Heck, even Starbucks knows better than to try to open a franchise there. Where would they put it? Next to John Deere, or the Lowe’s parking lot? A Starbucks between two pawn shops, across the street from the shoe repair, and cater-corner from the tattoo parlor, just doesn’t seem right.

I haven’t dusted my ceiling fans in so long, they look like spinning prom decorations, trailing expensive silk threads around and around the room. The cobwebs are so thick, I think glitter would stick. Well, that’s fine with me. Christmas is coming.

The more I think about it though, the more I realize that there’s probably nothing wrong with me tonight that a big bowl of pecan-studded brownie batter wouldn’t cure.

And then I could cash in that sugar high to help me clean the house all night!