Bachelor

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Marcus knew that it was ridiculous to get so flustered over his mother's coming to visit. It wasn't like he was still a teenager, living in her house and subject to utter embarrassment every time she came into his room while he had friends over. He was a perfectly respectable 32-year-old middle-manager, with his own apartment and a dependable late-model sedan. Still, the thought of having mom over for dinner brought him back to his childhood all too well. Didn't help that he wasn't used to it; usually, he came to visit her.

He did one last check of the bedroom, picking up a stray dirty sock that had managed to miss the laundry hamper. As he turned his attention to the living room, he decided that it would have helped if his apartment wasn't so sparse. He didn't have much, really: a bed, a desk, and a bookcase in the bedroom; a small couch and a single upright lamp in the living room; a smattering of dishes in the kitchen cabinets. A few random other items. Not a lot; certainly not enough to really make the place feel lived-in. He'd had mom over once not long after he moved in, and she had hinted strongly that the place could use the much-vaunted "woman's touch". Well, all that would have been nice, presumably, but in the interim he'd had to deal with what was rather than what he would have liked to be.

In the kitchen Marcus noticed the remains of his lunch by the sink. He threw away the empty box of "Mac'n Cheez" quickly, almost guiltily, and dumped the saucepan into the dishwasher without dealing with its congealed contents. Thing was heavy-duty; might as well put it through its paces. He surveyed the kitchen again, then nodded to himself. He might be unused to entertaining, but he could still put on a respectable enough showing. Maybe he'd even avoid being asked again when he was going to meet "some nice girl". Certainly he had already spent more than enough time asking it of himself.