Almostgotit.com

From: The Almostgotits
Sent: Sun 7/20/2008
Subject: Tunisia plans

Dear Everyone,
After long and careful thought, we are sad to tell you that we will not be travelling to Africa next week for the traditional Tunisian wedding of our nephew after all. Mr. Almostgotit will still be there to represent our family, however, and hopes to change the return portion of his ticket so that he can stay for the final event, too (my mistake, getting the dates wrong when I bought the tickets .) We are planning another trip west to see you all in the near future, though.
Warmest wishes to all, The Almostgotits

From: Everyone
Sent: Sun, 20 Jul 2008
Subject: RE: Tunisia plans

Dear Almostgotits,
- We hope everything is OK. - We were so looking forward to the time together. - Will you get a refund?  - We are sure your family knows best. - We hope it’s not anything we did.  - 11 yr old Cousin Q will be devastated. I guess there isn’t a way that 12 yr old could fly over with us and return with her father?
Love, Everyone

From: The Almostgotits
Sent: Sun, 20 Jul 2008
Subject: RE: Tunisia plans

Dear Everyone,
We’re sad, too. But going to Tunisia this particular summer was a big stretch to begin with, even if everything had gone according to plan. And things haven’t gone according to plan . ..<<details, more details>>. . . Sorry again re 12 yr old, but, we’ve already cancelled her ticket too — that one pays for the new mattress.
Love, The Almostgotits

From: Everyone
Sent: Mon, 21 Jul 2008
Subject: RE: Tunisia plans

Dear Almostgotits,
We had a restless night. We’re a bit concerned. We want to reach out to help, but we also don’t want to intrude . . . we could pay for the three of you to go to Tunisia if you could.  If you need to stay home because of work, we could pay for 12 yr old and an adult to fly with her to Cincinnati to connect with us . . . You can simply tell us “no” if you don’t feel comfortable.  You have always been so generous to us when we come to visit and we are thankful to have such a good family.
Love, Everyone

From: The Almostgotits
Sent: Mon, 21 Jul 2008
Subject: RE: Tunisia plans

Dear Everyone,
What a kind and loving offer. Thank you so much. If there weren’t so many good reasons piling up to change our minds, we wouldn’t have changed them (as I’ve told the groom separately, our heads finally had to prevail over our hearts, though our hearts are still very much his — and yours.) We want to be sure you all know we love you, and that we are not in any distress (financial or otherwise)  But we must decline your offer, while fully accepting the great love and generosity with which it was offered. What dears you are. (Or elk, if you prefer!!)

With large hugs, The Almostgotit Mooses

From: Ms. Almostgotit
Sent: Mon, 21 Jul 2008
Subject: RE: Tunisia plans

You better tell them the rest, honey. They’re your family.

From: Mr. Almostgotit
Sent: Mon, 21 Jul 2008
Subject: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Tunisia

After still more thought, I (Mr. A) have decided to call off my Paris-Tunisia trip as well, and will stay here with my family.  I really wanted to be with you all for this wonderful celebration, and I’m very sorry to miss it.  We are doing well–just a little frayed around the edges, and being here, we decided, is where we need to be right now.  We love you all and are going to be thinking about you all in Kasr al-Halal drinking tea with mint and strong coffee.  Take lots of pictures for us!  See you at Christmas.

Love, Mr. Almostgotit

We’re back from our vacation, but I accidentally shut one of our two cats in our bedroom for the entire week we were gone. He’s fine, but our bedroom is not. Imagine what a cat can do, over and over, in seven days. We’ve hauled the mattress into the yard just to get the smell out of our house.

That awful odor speaks more eloquently of squalor and general, personal failure than anything else I know.

Quite a contrast with the borrowed place we stayed in Oregon: a large, airy home with spotless floors and everything perfectly in place. An enormous, fully-equipped kitchen. A triple garage, no oil stains, holding neat rows of sporting equipment: cross country and downhill skis, bicycles, golf gear, a nice boat.

Photos of a happy, athletic family pose on nightstands next to large beds in huge bedrooms, each room decorated according to a theme – golfing. Skiing. Black bears. Pine trees.

Not a single cat, though.

No fluffs of cat hair, either. Also, no random piles of stuff, no old kitchen with chipped counters and divots in the floor. No junk in the laundry room, and certainly no actual laundry — just an expanse of gleaming, maple cabinets holding a very clean box of detergent, a box of trash bags, and one neat little paper bag with crisp-folded cuff to catch the non-existent dryer lint.

Even more amazing was the discovery, in the kitchen, of several half-consumed chocolate bars, foil wrapping neatly folded over the uneaten portions, as well a HALF-EATEN box of expensive chocolates in one of the perfectly-organized kitchen drawers. Which finally proved, of course, that the homeowners are actually ALIENS.

Ah well.

We can’t afford a new mattress. We’ve already over-extended ourselves this summer, assuming I’d have a job by now.  And to think I used to teach financial planning.

Today I called a friend, needing to confess that I have a foul mattress in my yard and no, we didn’t get to the dump with it this morning as planned, so we will have a mattress in our yard forEVER now, probably. Inevitably to be joined, soon, by a nasty old couch. Yes, she agreed gravely, but your need to add a couple of dirty, barefoot children running around in diapers and snotty noses.

We both suffer from severe middle-class anxiety, you see. Certain that we’re each about to slip down to an Unacceptable Class of Human at any minute — if we haven’t already – we expect the news to arrive shortly in some horrible letter.

My friend bravely concluded that tenement living really isn’t that bad.

Another dear friend, feeling a bit more constructive, said she wishes she could fly here from Michigan and help me clean the stinky room and set the contents on fire in the backyard, but

Is your neighborhood zoned for cat pee bonfires?

Therapy for three, please. Preferably with some chocolate-abstaining, wealthy athletes in Oregon.