New Keys

This housewarming invitation is for the stage where the boxes are down to four, the sofa is finally against the right wall, and nobody who texted congratulations has actually seen the place. Guests arrive, shoes come off at the mat, and the tour starts in the hallway. It runs through all four rooms in a fixed order, including the second bedroom, which is currently a drying rack and a stack of frames. The hall closet gets opened because the water heater is in there and the host has decided this is interesting.

Then everyone is loose in the kitchen with a drink and an opinion. The paint on the one undecided wall gets voted on twice, the cabinet handles are declared wrong by one guest and defended by two, and somebody opens a drawer with no cover story. The spare key, cut that week, goes to whoever is closest and most likely to water things. By the end the shoe pile by the door has tipped over and nobody has put it back.