I always knew when company was coming.
It was the ritual Mother exercised every time someone she was trying to impress was soon to arrive at our house that gave her away.
She started flipping all of the cushions on our living room furniture.
There was always one clean side reserved for company.
The rest of the time the used and faded cushions were a part of our daily lives.
Heaven forbid if we accidentally forgot to re-flip the cushions before we sat on them again.
I guess if plastic covers had been invented back then, Mother would have been their best advocate.
But even so, I'm not too sure she would have trusted plastic to protect her beloved upholstered furniture.
While thinking about my mother's ritual, I began to apply it to human behavior when meeting someone that we want to impress.
It seems to be a natural instinct to 'put on another face' for strangers.
When animals mate they have rituals.
Dances, prances and all sorts of showy behavior not common in everyday life in their species.
We are not that much different.
Watching my children through their dating years and remembering my own 'dating behavior' I know that the show is on when we are trying to impress.
But eventually it is all too much hard work.
That is when we really get to know one another, after the cushions have been flipped back to the comfortable side.
If everyone sticks around for the conversion then the relationship just might have a chance.