Company's coming! (Now is the perfect time to panic!)

I'm expecting company next week so, true to form, I'm now seeing my house through panic-colored glasses. All those things that I meant to get to someday have now become a lot more urgent. Nothing in my house looks the same as it did before I knew I was going to be entertaining and my brain has been writing post-it notes to itself. (Remind boys to pull out those two rusty posts by the front steps. Lay new tile in the bathroom floor.)

I love company, really I do. Since we've moved we're a lot farther away from most of our friends and relatives so having people over is a rare treat. I especially like sitting with everybody at our dining room table, looking through boxes of photos, drinking a cup of coffee and eating something sweet. (Remember to pick up something sweet at the bakery section in the grocery store. Or maybe make raised cinnamon rolls. Do I even own yeast?)

Last time we had a visitor it was a teenager from France and she stayed with us for six weeks. I re-grouted my bathroom shower in her honor, not that she noticed. I mean, she was a teenager. (Re-paint both bathrooms? Or would it be faster to wallpaper?)

I work myself up into this housekeeping tizzy a whole week before everyone's due to show up, cleaning things that I'd never bother to clean otherwise, like under my refrigerator, and organizing things that nobody will ever see, like storage closets and filing cabinets. (Vacuum out all the window sills in the house. Where did all those dead bugs come from?)

Pretty soon I'm snapping at my children to clean their rooms and snarling at my husband to organize the tool shed. Don't they realize how essential it is that our house be perfect in every way before company comes? (Should I go buy a "Bed in a Bag" at K-mart or see if I can find a complete sheet/bedspread/dust ruffle set that's hole-free and actually fits the bed in the guest room?)

Besides the usual housekeeping chores I occasionally catch myself contemplating a whole house makeover or a new landscaping project. (Maybe I can get my neighbor to come pour a cement patio in the back tomorrow. That'll give me a week while it sets up to go buy a table and chairs and maybe find a swordfish on a plaque to jazz it up a little.)

Underneath my panicked outer self I realize how dumb I'm being. I know that the reason people visit is because they want to spend time with us and not because they want to critique my housekeeping and decorating skills. (Order cable for the week that they're here? Or stick with seven channels and adjusting the antenna every time you change stations?)

The outcome to all this frenzied preparation is always the same. I basically chase my own tail right up until the last 24 hours before my company arrives. That's when I abandon all hope of achieving the perfect Better Homes & Gardens House and settle for the Disinfected Domicile instead. At the last moment I race through the house, spritz all available surfaces with bleach and throw all the clutter into the nearest closet. In the end, it's a relief to run out of time for anything but the bare minimum. (Get more bleach. Build more closets.)

My daughter says if I entertained more I wouldn't be as prone to freaking out prior to a visit. I think she's right, but my pool of available dinner party guests is kind of thin right now. I need to be more like Elwood P. Dowd in the movie "Harvey" and start inviting more people over to my house. Elwood never worried about what his house looked like. He just enjoyed talking to people. Besides, he had his sister to keep things up for him. Now that I think of it I can completely understand why she seemed so on edge all the time. It was the thought of all that company coming. (Invite more friends and family to Florida.)