‘Come to my house for lunch,’ I told some friends. ‘Come at 1pm.’ I was worried they might get the wrong end of the stick, so I quickly sent a follow-up email. ‘Really looking forward to seeing you all this Saturday,’ I wrote. ‘If you could each bring one of the following, that’d be great.’ I then casually listed every item one would need for a lunch.
My friends brought everything they were told to, and we had a very good time. I had a particularly good time, bathing in the ‘good hostess’ glow whilst having to do almost nothing. In my defence, I chucked an extraordinary and fairly unpalatable assortment of booze onto the kitchen table as soon as they arrived. I like to use my guests to get rid of things I can’t be bothered to pour down the sink/ chuck into the bin. I expect my ‘how to hostess’ reality TV show will soon be picked up by SkyLiving.
As my guests carefully loaded the dishwasher and wiped down the table before they left, I felt inordinately smug. I had clearly invented the new wave in lunch parties.
Today, my friend asked me over for dinner. ‘I have tomato, onion, lentil and chorizo soup. If you like that sound of that, bring bread.’
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I can’t help feeling I’m being taken for a ride. He better have some excellently awful alcohol he wants to get rid of.
unfashionablylost 