Dinner Was Served. Eventually

And so they eventually did arrive, my dinner guests, promptly THREE AND A HALF HOURS late! Oddly, I was in a very jovial mood, and answered the door and gave them all big welcoming hugs, but shooed them inside, saying “Dinner’s ready, let’s go!” Two of the guests looked at me with blank expressions. “Dinner?” The third, with whom I had made the arrangements, looked at me with a slightly intoxicated puppy dog look and just shrugged his shoulders. Number One and Two, who had spent the entire day with Number Three, yet were oblivious to the dinner plans, were evidentally eating dinner and having drinks at the Top of The Mark while I was desperately serenading the mussels into keeping their valves shut. One and Two shrugged their shoulders, too, and gobbled up everything, even asking for more. I really enjoyed them a lot, too. They were very gracious and warm, and very sweet. Guest Number Three, meanwhile, kept running to the living room to check his voice mail and make calls to the person or people who had probably been waiting for hours for him to finish his dinner and join him or them wherever. Is this how it is in New York? And now, to sleep.