My husband and I had just moved into a larger apartment and I was giving my first "real" dinner party. My kids had been sent to my parents, Tawny and Inky, my two cats were locked up in my son's room and I was busy finishing the meal in the kitchen and socializing with the arriving guests.

Of course, the table had been set ahead of time with a beautiful table cloth my mother had given me, matching napkins, Rosenthal china and Sterling flatware. Each place setting had a tiny bud vase with one tiny red rose in it and instead of a centerpiece, I had decorated the soup tureen with the same flowers in the two handles.

I went into the kitchen to make sure the soup was hot enough and started to set the first course on the table, strawberries and pineapple marinated in Grand Marnier in individual little bowls, something I considered to be very elegant, a sure sign of gracious living and I told my friends as much.

I asked the guests to come to the table and several excused themselves to wash their hands while the rest waited for them in the living room. When everybody went to the table, it was the biggest mess you ever want to see! Somebody or something had tasted the fruit in the little bowls and chewed up the roses. Black hair was all over everything and Inky, a little kitten of four months was sleeping in the soup tureen, dead drunk and snoring loudly.

We had no other table cloth. Every dish and eating utensil had to be washed and dried by hand. We ate dinner, an hour later than planned, on a paper tablecloth with Halloween designs.

For years after, that dinner was referred to as "Margaret's Gracious Living Dinner".

Author Unknown