The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag 00 - Swept Under the Rug

sounded even more stupid than I’d imagined, but in my defense, my mother-in-law brings out the worst in me. The last time she’d introduced me to friends of hers, I’d been detained by the police after some yahoo off-ed a man and dumped his body in my wheelbarrow. Even if I wasn’t a devoted stay-at-home-mom and a cleaning lady to boot, I figured Laura wouldn’t show me off. Must be the bumpkin stamp on my forehead.
    “Yes dear…. A luncheon.” The answer came slowly, as if Laura was communicating with the squirrelly village idiot. She said dear the way some people say dumb-ass.
    Scowling, I rolled my head around on my shoulders, as if understanding would fall into place with enough centripetal force.
    “I will email you the time and address. You can come early and pick me up at the house. Be sure to wear something appropriate, none of your flashier get-ups.”
    I blinked, but didn’t respond. Neil once said his mother issued more orders than all the BUD/s instructors he’d had during training to become a SEAL. While her words might have been camouflaged as a request, there was no doubt in my mind that I’d been appointed for the task.
    “I’ll have to check my schedule before I can commit to anything,” I hedged, but there was no way I’d agree to her whims until I figured out the why of it. “Neil and I have some stuff going on and I promised—”
    “What sort of ‘stuff’?” Suspicion coated her tone.
    For an instant, my inner smart-aleck wanted to retort ‘wild monkey sex,’ but I came to my senses in time. Laura made it blatantly obvious that she didn’t appreciate my sense of humor. Her loss. I was simply glad Neil hadn’t inherited her superiority complex.
    “Oh you know, some post-holiday shopping, a few appointments we’ve been putting off, things like that.” I purposefully kept my answer vague because I didn’t want Laura’s take on our seeing a marriage counselor. Of course, she’d see it as my fault and do her best to make me feel like a steaming pile of manure.
    “I see. Well, I would hate to hold you up from your busy social life.” The frost in her voice chilled me more than the Massachusetts’s winter. The phone clicked in my ear. Another lesson on how to win friends and influence in-laws brought to you by Maggie Phillips.
    The snow had melted a bit on our driveway, but more was predicted for the next day. How did Yankee’s deal with this every stinking year?
    I scuttled inside and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. Flipping through the mail, I sorted bills from junk and left Neil’s Men’s Fitness magazine on his end table.
    Another fight had ensued when Neil realized I’d cancelled all of our memberships to the gym. Now he was stuck running at the high school track and working out with free weights in our garage to keep fit and he wasn’t happy about it.
    Depressed, I sat down at the computer and checked my email. Several requests had come in for my cleaning services. I sent the auto response Josh had created for me, letting the client know my rates had changed. When I’d first been lured into this cleaning business, I’d worked for way too little and consequently, become the Hag everyone wanted to hire. By charging more, I’d turned off some potential clients, but also made a bit of money last month. I still had to turn people down because I had yet to hire a new cleaning partner.
    Now what? Neil was at work, picking up some overtime before our 1:00 session with the marriage guru and the boys wouldn’t be back from school for hours. I’d knocked on Sylvia’s door twice already and she either wasn’t home or refused to answer. Eric’s SUV hadn’t been parked in the driveway, so I gathered he was lying low like the snake he resembled.
    Ruminating on Eric and Sylvia’s marriage was not a healthy way to spend my time. After a few moments, I decided to take a page out of Neil’s book and exercise my troubles away.
    Every pair of sweats I owned had at least two bleach stains on them, so I snagged a pair of my husband’s track pants, rolling them at the waist a few times so I wouldn’t trip over the cuffs. Donning crappy sneakers and an extra sweatshirt, gloves and Neil’s SEAL cap, I checked out my appearance then wished I’d resisted. I looked like the Stay-Puffed marshmallow man. Hopefully Bill Murry wouldn’t show up and zap me into another dimension.
    Grabbing my keys and cell phone, I locked the house then hit the streets. Our