In Re Amway

Before I start my post, might I mention that right now, as I type these very words, the boy is sleeping ON HIS OWN IN HIS PLAYPEN? There is a God. Anyway...

Fran from down the street come over today.

I thought it was nice, albeit kind of weird [Fran is, like, 70 years old, and the only time I'd met her was at Rosie's party and OH BY THE WAY Rosie is taking an... interesting... vacation but I won't judge her because I actually do really like her... OK maybe I'll judge a little bit, but don't we all?].

Fran talked about the layout of our homes [they are all very similar, but each has its own design quirks, kind of like the Gosselin sextuplets], and about the updates she's been doing because she's trying to sell hers in order to move permanently to her vacation house. She talked about the baby, because she has a grandson two months older than him [but my kid is already as big as hers so IN YOUR FACE OTHER BABY]. Mostly she just made small talk for probably an hour and a half. Oh, Nino from up the street made a brief appearance too... another post for another day... but he left abruptly after I denied stealing his hedge clippers.

So I noticed that she was carrying a business card around with her. As I thought she was getting ready to leave, I asked her whose business card it was... and then I realized that she wasn't fidgeting because she was getting ready to leave. That would have been too easy; my life is not such that people stop by innocently just to chat. But, oh, how I wish it were.

Turns out, Fran has an Amway business [but it's not called Amway - it's "Quixtar North America"]. She wants me to start one too! We could be Quixtar friends and go to meetings and seminars and make money for our families together! We'd make money for buying things that we already buy! Doesn't it sound great?! And there are so many more benefits that I have to throw in a few more exclamation points!!!

Seriously, me with an Amway business? Are you kidding? Insert your own joke here, because there are too many to choose from.

Ugh. It's a rock and hard place situation, because I just met this woman, but I'm going to be living next to her for a while [even if she does sell her house, she'll still be on the street all the time visiting the rest of the neighbors]. I don't want to make any enemies [or any more enemies than Nino, see above]. I know she'll be calling to get me to come look at a "business plan" [emphasis on the quotation marks, please].

It's too awkward... I can feel myself recoiling from the social progress I've made in the past couple of months. Because it's a snowball, guys. If things get weird with Fran, I'll assume that she's told everyone that I'm not a nice person, and therefore I will avoid everyone on the street and we will turn into That Weird Anti-Social Couple, which is worse than before we ever became involved with the neighbors, because then we were just That Weird Couple We Know Nothing About.

Maybe we should move.