How NOT to meet your best friend's boyfriend (or The Dangers Of House-sitting)

[Slartibartfast]

My friend Jake recently started dating someone named Tina - they're both in their late 30's and eager for a family, so the relationship has gone pretty fast.  They also seem to be a great match for each other - I'm really happy for Jake    DH and I were over there a few nights ago and met Tina for the first time.  Tina also had her best friend Kelsey there, and Kelsey told such a fantastic story about how she met Jake that I had to paraphrase it here    I can't quite do it the storytelling justice she did, but here goes:

Tina only just finished moving into her new house, so when she and Jake went out of town for Christmas, she asked Kelsey to check on it for her if she got the chance.  She doesn't have any pets or houseplants yet, so "checking on it" was mostly just taking in the mail, flipping lights, etc.  Kelsey was excited because she had been dying for a chance to use Tina's new fancy whirlpool hot tub    Tina said go ahead, and to come in through the garage because the lock on the back door to the garage was broken but the house key would be in a flowerpot inside the garage.

As it transpired, Kelsey had a really stressful week and didn't make it over to Tina's house until that Saturday night.  By then she was sick of having family visiting and was dying to come try the hot tub.  Even though she knew Jake and Tina would be coming back the next day, she decided she really ought to come over and take a nice soak and double-check that everything was okay.

She got to the house, thinking about the hot tub - oh, it was nice of Jake to leave his car in the driveway to make the house look like someone was home!  She trotted around to the back door, let herself into the garage, and flipped on the light.  There was a flowerpot, but no key.  And nothing else in the garage that looked like it could have been a flowerpot containing a key.  Kelsey started poking around just in case it was somewhere else when she heard a sound in the house.

Now, the way she tells it, she heard a strange man's voice and her first thought was "oh HELL no!  Nobody's going to break into my friend's house on my watch!"  And then she heard a woman's voice, and came to the conclusion that someone else was using the hot tub and was seriously ready to put the throwdown on whatever burglar would bring his floozie girlfriend along with him while breaking into decent people's houses!  So she summoned up her best cop voice and started banging on the door and yelling "Open up!  I know you're in there!"

So yeah, her first sight of 6'4" Jake was when he flung open the door, butterknife in hand, ready to take on the obviously inept female burglar lumbering around inside his girlfriend's garage    Luckily for Kelsey, she suddenly recognized Tina's voice, and then remembered that Jake and Tina were coming back Saturday, not Sunday.  And began apologizing profusely.

And that's how she met Jake.  She didn't say whether they let her come in and use the hot tub 

[Jocelyn]

Oops.
My sister and BIL went away and asked a friend/neighbor to come feed their livestock. They told him they'd lock their very protective border collie in the garage, so he could come and go in peace. When they got back, they were surprised to see his truck in their driveway, and even more surprised to see the collie outside. The dog had been so upset about hearing someone on her property that she had broken a hole in the fiberglass garage door! The pieces showed teeth marks where she'd worried a piece loose, and then kept at it until the hole was big enough for her to get out. She met the neighbor as he was feeding the livestock, and chased him all the way down the road to his house, and he'd been afraid to come back for his truck!

[kymom3]

Several years ago my sister was house watching for a co-worker.  Sister works in a small town, in a small office, so co-workers are also friends. 

Co-worker and her family were on their summer vacation.  What did my silly sister do?  Decorated their house for Christmas.  She didn't get all of their decorations out, but had their wreath on the door and a few Christmas knick knacks sitting out, she may have hung up their stockings too.

Co-worker thought it was hilarious when she and her family got home.

[BabyMama]

I brought home my college BF. My best friend at the time was very excited and wrote a list of questions to ask him when they met. Questions ranged from personal to way too personal, and included gems like:

Question 5. What are your interests?
Question 6. That's nice.

She kept the list. She framed it and read all the questions aloud at our wedding.

[siamesecat2965]

I thought, as I was reading it, that she was going to interrupt THEM enjoying the hot tub.  hehehe - THAT would have been quite a way to meet!

[snowflake]

I had a co-worker who once had a life-long dream of opening a B&B.  The reality lasted about 2 years.  She imagined meeting fascinating people who would star as characters in her novels.  She realized that there was so much housework (she had to keep her day job too) that she had zero time to write.  She had a few doozies of stories that led to her decision to fold and here is one of them:

A couple just showed up at her house and asked if she had a room available.  She did, but she hadn't had time to go through and give it a really good cleaning.  (It had been vacant for some weeks during the off-season and was a little dusty.  If they had made reservations she would have given it a once-over.)  She showed them in and asked if they needed information about sightseeing.  They started inquiring about the local sites and asking for restaurant recommendations.  She swears that she saw them walk down the driveway towards the local tourist center with a map in hand.

She grabbed her cleaning supplies rushed up to their room to see if she could get it to hotel-quality before they got back.  She saw that the comforter was mussed and was horrified.  Had she really left it so horribly awry?  She immediately pulled off the bedding and....

...discovered that the couple had really just wanted to jump in bed for some Scrabble but were too embarrassed to even say, "We want to hang out in our room" so they had pretended that they were going sight-seeing.

She said afterwards that she should have said something professional and customer-servicey but she instead just screamed, "Sweet Mother of G-d" and ran out.

Remembering her telling of that story still makes me snicker madly.  She was one of those people where I just wished that I had videotaped all her stories so I could watch them again when I was depressed.

[Slartibartfast]

I thought, as I was reading it, that she was going to interrupt THEM enjoying the hot tub.  hehehe - THAT would have been quite a way to meet!

I got the impression they were eating (hence the butterknife) but they never said either way