SOFA at Our Home!

 To: All-Employees

RE: SOFA at our home!

We’re THRILLED to be hosting SOFA, the weekly end of week party that travels from home to home, for the first time in many years! If you remember the last time I hosted, please don’t hold that against me (or my spouse, whom I didn't even know at the time)–that was a long time ago! Anyway, we wanted to give you some information about our home to prepare you for what we hope will be an amazing party! We’ve broken this invitation into sections for ease of navigating. Please read them all, even if you don’t think they pertain to you.

What You Should Know About Our Vibe

Before you enter our home, we’ll be asking you what Zone you’re in, and what your plans are to get back into the Green Zone if you report being in blue, yellow, or (God forbid) red. 

Please provide your own fidget and coping cards so you can stay in the Green Zone, because no one at our home is going to share theirs. We will be checking in with you at least once an hour about your Zone, so we can offer the best possible support! 

We especially appreciate it when you verbalize your process, such as, “Oh, there’s the asshole who disagreed with me at the division meeting yesterday. Fuck. I’m in the yellow Zone. I need to choose a coping card and use one of my skills, and fast. Shit, he’s walking over here! My fidget, my fidget, where is it? I’m in the red zone: fight, flight, fawn or freeze! Somebody help me!” Verbalizing your process helps others in the home support you! If you forget to do that, our kids will be sure to remind you!

Children Are Welcome!

Our house is not exactly childproof, but our lighters, knives, meds, and all electronics are locked up pretty well. By “pretty well” I mean there’s no way in hell you’d be able to get to them unless you’re very persistent. Please, don’t be as persistent as our children! That will lead to a visit from the cops. They’re nice people and know us all by name, and when we call dispatch they immediately send someone without having to ask who or where we are–but they have already been here twice this week and are kind of getting tired of us, so we’d rather they not visit during SOFA!

But, of course, you can feel free to bring your children; we just can’t be responsible for what our children or any of the neighborhood children will say or do to them. But hey, a visit to our house will definitely build character–that much we can guarantee!

Speaking of our kids, please don’t ask us how many we have, how old they are, or which ones are ours. That’s a complicated question. Please don’t ask complicated questions. And please don’t bring up how you’ve considered fostering but here are the 10 reasons you decided not to do it. We’re kind of tired. Keep the conversation focused on what Zone you’re in and how you’re planning to get back to the Green Zone and everything will be fine.

A Few Other Guidelines

Speaking of tired, we’ll need you to leave by 7:30 p.m., because if we don’t start the bedtime routine right at 7:30, we’ll be paying for it for days.

Speaking of paying, please don’t bring any money, credit cards, or important belongings of any kind. If you’re wearing jewelry, make sure it’s hard to remove, not that this has ever stopped anyone. We can’t guarantee your belongings won’t get ripped off your body, stolen from your pocket or purse, peed on, thrown up on, or purposely or accidentally destroyed. 

This hopefully goes without saying, but don’t bring any tobacco products or booze–it’s too triggering for our kids to have these in or anywhere near our home. (Sorry, colleague who was verbally harassed for passing our home with a cigarette in your mouth!) We’ve got a BYOF (fidget) vibe, definitely not BYOB.

Also, please keep your voice down. Our kids are triggered by loud noises as well. 

And no music–oh, God, definitely no music. No rap or country or old school rock or anything currently on the radio–all triggering. And no Christian rock–but that’s just because we don’t like Christian rock.

Oh, and if you drive here, be sure to hide your keys somewhere very clever–no, not your pockets or your purse, that’s way too obvious. And, park far away from the house. We won’t go into the reasons for that, just that rocks and windshields may have been issues in the past. 

And if you walk, well–know that if any children or animals follow you home, we won’t take them back.

Did I mention no screens? Screens are very triggering. So, yeah, leave your phones and anything else with a screen or a cord at home. If you need to call someone while you’re here, we can unlock one of our phones and take you into a special room we call the “side room” where you can make a call without any of the kids seeing you, because it’s the one room they never enter, due to the smell. The side room is…well, a less than ideal place to hang out. We’ll just leave it at that. So we’d recommend a short phone call, if you must make one. 

About Pets!

We are a pet friendly home. In fact, we have six cats and three dogs! Each of our kids have an animal or two to pretend they are caring for, when, in fact, we’re doing all the work! Want to walk one of the dogs or cats while you’re here? No problem! Just be aware that at least half of our animals are in the process of dying! So, the house rule is that if you notice piss, shit, bloody drool, or vomit anywhere, it’s your job to clean it up. You can’t point at your division chair or one of the vice chancellors and scream loudly that if it weren’t for them the mess would have already been cleaned up–remember, it’s important to try to stay in the Green Zone! Anyway, if you see it, clean it up. You’ll find paper towels and cleaning solution in every room of the house for ease of use. The Swiffer is in the kitchen, and the heavy duty mop is in the basement. 

But, don’t go in the basement. It’s scary down there. 

Also, if any animal is lingering by the door, open the door. Fast. You don’t want to know what might happen if you don’t.

Fun Outdoor Activities!

While you’re opening the door, you should know we have a great yard for those who would prefer to be outdoors, either because they don’t like stepping in bloody drool, are allergic to animals or children or talking about their feelings, or they just really enjoy gazing at the stars! No problem! 

And if you’re outside and think, hey, I could use some exercise, there’s plenty of yard work to do, too, including removing the thistles from the sand box. Just be careful–the sandbox is also the outdoor litter box, which is why we haven’t removed the thistles yet, to prevent children from playing with cat poop and getting sick. If we removed the thistles, we’d have to get rid of the whole damn thing, and who has time for that? Having to do that would definitely put us in the yellow or blue zone, and we don’t want to go there. But, you’re welcome to help!

If you need a break from yard work, it’s fine to use the trampoline. Just be warned that if you get onto it, you’re guaranteed to draw the attention of our children, plus several neighborhood kids–somewhere between 10 and 40 in all. Note that they’ll all ask you for food or water or kool aid if you’re a grown up. Please don’t give them any, and definitely don’t let them in the house, even if they claim to live here. 

Feel free to take vegetables from the garden–anyone’s welcome to them!--though we’d prefer you actually take them home and eat them, rather than picking them and hiding them in the sandbox/outdoor cat litter box/thistle garden so we won’t force you to try them. 

There’s also a great mound of dirt that we ordered about three years ago for an ambitious project that never got done. Feel free to ride your bike repeatedly over the mound of dirt, then act surprised when you get hurt, then use your coping cards to find a skill to get back into the Green Zone. We don’t know where our band aids or any other first aid supply is because the kids really love playing with those so they often get lost and we’ve given up on replacing them. 

Speaking of outdoors, sorry in advance for the turds on the walkway up to the front door. Please remove your shoes before entering because the animals get excited if they smell their own shit  on you when you enter.

SOFA Souvenirs!

Finally, feel free to explore and take anything you want out of the garage, except for the lawn mower and snow blower–we need those. Though they’re probably broken, so if you have the time, go ahead and fix them while you’re cleaning the garage–er, I mean, while you’re selecting items to take home with you as a souvenir! We always provide souvenirs at our SOFAs!  

Things You Definitely Can and Should Bring

Did we mention we highly recommend you bring your own fidget and coping cards? That’s a point worth repeating. Also, bring your own rubber band to hold the coping cards together, plus at least a few extra, because at least one of our kids loves to steal rubber bands and coping cards. 

We love sweets! However, I should warn/remind you that the last time I hosted SOFA or attended SOFA I only had one kid, and she ate most of the sweets and threw up all over everybody. This may or may not have been because some of the brownies had additional substances baked in–I can’t say for sure. 

You may or may not remember this. Probably, if you were there, you don’t, because that was one wild SOFA. And probably, if you’re under the age of 40, you don’t remember it.

As a side note, this was also the SOFA where two people who are now married kissed for the first time and two people who are no longer married got into a giant fight and a bunch of faculty went outside in their bare feet and danced in the snow and some other faculty stole all of my personal care products and hid them around the house and somebody else reorganized my poetry books in the order of their personal like or dislike of each poet. But I digress. 

My point is, that SOFA happened before I was even married, and when I could still count how many kids I had, and before any of my animals were dying (I only had two at the time, for the record)--so I wasn’t used to the whole throwing up thing yet, and it was still kind of gross. I guess now it wouldn’t be that big a deal, so never mind–bring whatever you want to eat, as long as you don’t expect to get your pan or tupperware or any leftovers back!

Closing Remarks

 

See you Friday at SOFA anytime before 7:30 p.m.! We can’t wait to nervously socialize while we wonder where our kids are and what they are doing!