My Kids' Play Dates

I feel uneasy about being responsible for lifeforms that don't have my last name.

Play dates therefore, stress me out.

My anxiety is compounded by the fact that nearly every time other people's kids come over to my house, they always seem to injure themselves.

The events of this afternoon serve as a case in point. Each of my kids brought a friend home from school. The three friends hadn't been in my house for more than ten minutes when one of them got a bloody nose.

"Do you get these often?" I asked once we got the problem under control.

The boy shook his head. "This is my first bloody nose ever," he told me.

The boy the spent the rest of the afternoon with wads of tissue stuffed up his nostrils.

We made it a whole hour before the next boy tripped over a soccer ball and twisted his ankle.

"People are going to think that I'm hurting their kids," I hissed to my husband over the phone.

Just to be safe, I barred my daughter and her friend from all physical activity. "Why don't you watch a movie?" I suggested. "Or play a board game?"

For the record: I asked my daughter's friend three separate times during her visit if she was hungry or thirsty. Each time, she told me "no."

The minute the girl's mother pulled up, the girl burst into tears. "I'm so thirsty!" the girl cried as she clutched her throat. "My mouth feels like sandpaper. I need a drink!"

The mother looked at me as if I am the manager of a medieval torture chamber.

"I asked her three times!" I told the woman. I even opened my refrigerator to prove to her that my offers weren't empty.

My daughter's friend shook her head. "I didn't hear her," she whispered.

My case was not helped by the arrival onto the scene of the boy with the tissue stuffed up his nose and the boy with the ice pack wrapped around his ankle.

"Is my mom here yet?" the bloody nose asked.

The mother of the severely parched ushered her daughter into a waiting minivan. I didn't even bother to pretend that we would ever see them again.

"Good-bye," I called out from the front door as they drove away.

"Mommy." The voice behind me was small and pathetic.

I turned around to find my three year-old with freshly picked boogers on each finger.

While I was reaching for a clean tissue, my son wiped his treasures on the boy with the bloody nose's leg.

Yes, I writing this from the darkest corner of my closet, where I am curled in the fetal position and have been chanting "Why me?" for the past three hours.