I am divuling my ever expanding list of hang-ups that have been collected since my infancy, and in unfolding this tissue paper on the table, I straighten out the creases so it is all so very clear. Clear that there are no gotchas. I am as neurotic as any woman could be, and maybe even a shade more bizarre than most.

I never make my bed, I can't bear to sit at a wobbly table, gin makes me crazy, I am lactose intolerant, I require a substantial towel on the towel rack, my parents never have heard of a war they couldn't get behind, and I need a surplus of napkins at the dinner table (because I am a messy eater with a tendency to strangle my napkins into somthing the size of a cotton ball.)

When he first met my parents, I made them swear to say nothing of the above. I made them repeat the list by heart backwards and forwards gave them little tricks to keep it fresh in their memory. They insisted on crib notes, but I'd decided that a paper trail was far too risky. I prepped a short list of things that they could discuss, and although they deviated from this list to keep it cool and natural, there was a slip. On the way out the door..."Well, we'll see you again...maybe." My shoulders crept up my neck as I walked out the door- recalling some of the most painful of 'meet the parent memories.' Nicknames included, but not limited to: 'Hairy-legged Joker', 'Prince', 'The Suck-up', 'The Dork', 'The-Guy-That-Doesn't-Eat-Big-Boy-Food' (he was vegetarian).

So, we packed up the last few boxes of things I'd been keeping at my mother's, and loaded them into the car. Boxes of rocks I'd collected from around the world, very heavy old text books, and the annual booty of toilet paper that my mom gives me and my brother's every year for Valentines Day, and he handled it all with the grace and poise of a real man.

A real man.