The year was 2014 – sophomore year of college.
The boys and I were preparing for a night out on the town when a curveball was thrown our way.
Bubba and I were sitting on the couch, sipping our second beers and debating the pronunciation of the word “coupon”, when Blake delivered the news:
“Alice is coming over, and she’s bringing Kelly.”
As my brain processed this information, time froze around me.
Kelly. She’s bringing Kelly. The instagram model. To our house.
The girl who posted a selfie last week with the caption, “Just chillin, wbu?” and got 30,000 likes.
She was coming here. To this dump.
I looked around the room. The place was a sty.
There were beer cans scattered all over the place, dishes in the sink, and sweaty clothes on the floor outside the laundry room.
For a millisecond Bubba and I made eye contact and it was obvious that he was having similar thoughts. His face was as pale as a ghost and his expression was that of pure repulsion.
This was a disaster.
I took a long sip from my beer, and then time resumed to its usual flow. I looked up at Blake and replied.
“Cool.”
“Alright, great,” said Blake, “I’m heading out to pick them up now.”
We sat in silence as Blake grabbed his keys and walked away.
But the second the door closed, we sprang into action.
Bubba immediately started washing the dishes while I grabbed a trash bag and began picking up all the cans.
I wiped down the counters and tables, while Bubba started up the vacuum.
I texted our roommates, Tyler and Jake, who were out at the liquor store, explaining the situation and asking them to grab something classy.
Then our other roommate, Mark, came down the stairs, confused at the scene he was entering in the living room.
“What’s going on?” He asked.
“Kelly is coming over.”
It was silent for a second.
Mark, expressionless, looked at me, then looked at Bubba. He tilted his head back, muttering gibberish under his breath.
Bubba and I exchanged worried glances.
Finally, Mark nodded in understanding and took a deep breath.
“Pass me that broom,” he said.
And we resumed.
At a million miles per hour, Mark swept, Bubba vacuumed, and I mopped.
We dusted every surface, sprayed febreze in every room, and polished all of the wood floors.
It only took a few minutes, and the place was spotless.
With a simultaneous sigh of relief, we plopped back down on the couch and cracked open another Miller Lite.
But as I looked around our place, something was still not right.
Our posters on the walls – Bob Marley smoking a joint, Dominique Wilkins at the slam dunk contest, and the movie poster for “Superbad” suddenly seemed childish and uncool.
Our torn-up red sofa resting on our red rug with the vomit stains suddenly seemed less classy.
Our fluorescent lights flickered and our ceiling fan clicked, off beat from the music.
This place was not Kelly-ready, and we all knew it.
Without a word, we stood back up, and returned to action.
I ripped the posters from the wall and slammed them down to the ground. Mark and Bubba rolled up the rug and disassembled the couch, before the three of us carried them down to the dumpster.
But returning to the empty room, the hopelessness of the situation sunk in. We were never going to get this place ready in time for Kelly.
Just when we were ready to accept defeat, Tyler and Jake walked in the front door.
“I got your text,” Tyler said, “Come help us unload the truck.”
I glanced out the window and saw the huge U-haul that sat in our driveway.
Tyler caught on to the general confusion in the room and explained, “We did like you said, we got classy stuff.”
Without wasting any more time, the group got to work.
From the truck, Tyler and I unloaded a beautiful Turkish rug that we spread out in our living room.
We unloaded a large leather couch with a matching loveseat and chair, an antique wooden coffee table, and several framed original post-expressionism style paintings from a local artist.
But even with our updated furniture, there was still work to do.
Before hanging up our new art, Tyler and Bubba re-painted the walls on the entire ground floor.
Mark and I installed a classy crystal chandelier in the living room, while Jake updated the backsplash in the kitchen and installed new granite countertops.
Next, we decided it would create a far more open floor plan if we took out the wall between the kitchen and Blake’s bedroom.
Not only would this allow space for us to fit a kitchen island, a breakfast nook, and expand the dining room, we’d also be able to add an extra half bath for our guests to use.
Just as Tyler and I finished installing our new crown molding, Mark and Bubba finished laying the tile in the new bathroom, and Jake finished connecting all the plumbing, we got a text from Blake.
“Be there in 10.”
I looked around the house. It was unrecognizable from the dump that we lived in only 45 minutes earlier.
Where our red, vomit-stained rug once lie, we now had a beautiful hand-woven Turkish rug.
Where we once had a stack of dirty laundry, we now had a full floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, complete with an armchair and lamp.
And where Blake’s bed used to rest, we now had a state-of-the-art half bathroom for our guests to use.
Jake carried in the ice sculpture from the U-haul, and we were all set.
This place was Kelly-ready. Finally, we could relax.
We sat down on the couch, when the next text from Blake came in to the group message.
“Change of plans, we are going to Justin’s house, meet us there whenever.”
We looked at the text, then looked up at each other.
We sat there in silence. A single tear ran down Mark’s face.
Then Bubba vomited on the Turkish rug.
I Just Realized Something 