Hark! The mothership comes.

After laughing for ages at how Shauny refers to her mother as The Mothership, I feel the need to steal her reference for the next few days. For lo, the Mothership is preparing to wing her way from the Tulliverse to Huntsvegas, and the Huntsvegas natives may never be the same.

Translation: yep, we're so busted. Mom's coming to visit. Time to clean the cupboards and hide the naughties.

There are very specific, yet unwritten, Rules Of Conduct that must be followed in order to guarantee a successful parental visit. For those of you who missed the peer-to-peer lecture, here's a quick checklist to ensure that your visit will conclude with a minimum of cranial explosions or disownments:

1. Vacuum. If the floor looks like it will sprout if it's just watered a bit, it's time to vacuum. No matter how much the cats hate it.
2. Attempt to move most computer paraphernalia to the computer room, in order to foster the mistaken belief that your lives do not actually revolve around computer machinery.
3. Plan major gathering. It implies you are more socially adjusted now than in your teenage years, and that you actually have friends now. (Assuming they show up. Remember: bribery with food is an acceptable part of friendship.)
4. Stock your pantry with food that other people actually eat. Don't assume that everyone else wants to eat your overly-spicy eggplant/cheese/tomato concoctions. (When in doubt, keep apple cinnamon Cheerios on hand. Given a dire enough situation, everyone will eat Cheerios.)
5. Clean the guest bathroom. Nothing tells your guest you love them like making them walk across a floor gently floured with kitty litter just to get to the bathtub.
6. Put clean sheets on the guest bed. Nothing tells your guest you love them quite like forcing them to sleep on a bed whose sheets are covered in cat fur.
7. Hide the sex toys Hide everything that might indicate that you and your spouse have a reasonably kin^H^H^H^Hnormal sex life.
8. With the exception of wine, which, while heathenish, is still tolerated, hide the booze. Family doesn't need to know that your after-dinner drink of choice has a proof in the high double digits.

The mothership has not set foot in Alabama for - three years, is it? (Aren't we supposed to have unpaid interns to serve as fact-checkers around here? Didn't we make some oath about journalistic integrity? Oh, wait, no, we didn't.)

Hilarity is likely to ensue as we, the Infernal Twosome who have pledged our lives to a pursuit of geekery, attempt to entertain one thoroughly nongeeky parental unit who is visiting partly because it's been at least three years since she visited and partly because Friday is the second anniversary of her husband's death. It will be interesting to see if The Event is referred to, sideswiped, or avoided altogether.

My money's on a good, solid sideswipe.

Stay tuned: in addition to Tales Of The Mothership, Friday morning will mark the inauguration of Trainer #3: Val. It's quite possible that the amount of entertaining done for the Mothership will be inversely proportional to how hard Val works me on Friday morning. It may be somewhat difficult to be the squiring daughter-about-town when said daughter-about-town more resembles daughter-slumped-upon-couch due to overexertion and soreness of musculature.

Oh, yes, I suspect hilarity is going to ensue. In fact, I suspect I may not be able to avoid the hilarity, as it's starting to develop Mack-truck characteristics and a rather reliable homing system in addition to a rather large amount of momentum.

That's not a homing beacon attached to my butt, is it?

Uh-oh.