The Secret

There are quite a few widows in our ward, and there is much talk of how lonely they get. It's sad, and I wish I had more time to visit. But I was thinking about it today, and I'm pretty sure that will never be me. Because I know the secret.
I know how to get everyone I know to drop whatever they're doing and come rushing to my place.
All you have to do to get tons of visitors at your door is to have a messy house!
Now, I don't think it works if your house is messy all the time. You have to keep your house really clean for at least a week. (During which time your house will be invisible. People walking past will not even glance in your direction. No one will even think about stopping by. And you probably won't get any mail because the mailman, of course, can't see your house.)
But then all you have to do is let it fall apart. Say, if you have a daughter who's throwing up every hour for at least 24 hours and you get no sleep and all the other kids just run around making messes while you do nothing but read Dora stories and clean up puke. Something like that.
As soon as your house is good and messy, the people will come! Lots of people. Your mother-in-law, your visiting teachers, the neighbors, old friends, distant relatives, EVERYONE! And they won't just step inside the front door and chat. Oh no. They'll need to use your bathroom, walk through your laundry room, visit your kids' rooms, and maybe even want a drink, because they can probably tell that there are no clean cups left in the entire house.
And there goes your loneliness problem out the window!
Of course, it will take several days for your house to recover from that one day of neglect, during which time you will continue to receive a multitude of guests.
Until that magic moment when your house is presentable again, and the flood of people will instantly stop. By then you'll be sick of guests, but if you're ever lonely again...
you know what to do.