Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 19, 1994 TAG: 9405170078
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I have to stock up on Sweet 'N Low _ not Equal _ every time my mom comes and get ready to rid the bathroom of the blue toothpaste bits she leaves on my white sink.
When my friend Margaret arrives for the weekend, I know to stock up the fridge, stand back and let her do the cooking. But I don't waste my time tidying up because she'd never notice: You could plant potatoes on her apartment floor.
Me, I like to obey the basic rules of house-guesting, drummed into my head since the days of junior-high sleep-overs: Arrive on time. Leave early. And don't pull the old training-bra-in-freezer trick on the host while she sleeps.
I don't have as many visitors as I did when I lived at the beach _ where distant cousins of ex-boyfriends of fifth-grade best friends tended to rear their heads on my ocean-view veranda, thinking that a six-pack of beer and a bucket of KFC would net them free lodging for the week.
Still, we have had a flurry of guests recently, who of course live out of town - meaning, I can write about them without fear of retaliation ... such as surprising me with an extended visit.
Rule No. 1 in the Art of Housing Guests: Guard your space. This is particularly apt if you are the wife of a husband whose best friend is single, good-looking, an accountant (and if you know of a woman who's interested, call me ASAP) and was so distraught over the chance of losing his best friend to marriage that he - the best man - was blithering drunk the entire weekend of your wedding. (It's a guy thing, we wouldn't understand.)
Worst attribute: He tends to show up at the worst possible times - like the weekend you are moving into a new house - and tell you where to put your furniture. Even worse, he brings his new bimbo girlfriend, expects you to do his laundry and sleeps till noon. Which reminds me ...
Rule No. 2: Beware of the boyfriend/girlfriend co-guest. Aida brought her new fiance up from South Carolina two weekends ago - and they were so inseparable, the neighbors asked if they were newlyweds. They were fun, extremely self-entertaining and didn't complain when my 2-month-old spit up all over them. Four stars.
Thumbs down for my old roommate, Bette, who once arrived with a boyfriend she'd just broken up with en route in the car. I am still amazed they survived the eight-hour drive back.
Rule No. 3: There's a reason why you haven't seen your old high- school buddy in 10 years.
Funny thing about you and your best friend going separate ways, you moving away and her staying in the old hometown: She expects you to still sneak cigarettes and to share her 20-year rivalry with Linda Willman, the cheerleader.
Meanwhile, you have that uncomfortable task of asking her to smoke outside. And you can't remember why you hated Linda in the first place.
Rule No. 4: No old boyfriends, ever, even for just a quick visit. In fact, what were you thinking when you decided it would be a real '90s thing to have your old beau - along with his new wife and his mother - stop over when they were in town passing through?
Did you forget it takes more than two hours to make your house look like Southern Living, that in fact it would take years? Did you forget you still have 15 pounds of maternity fat to lose? And finally, Rule No. 5: Professional houseguests are best. A friend of a friend named Cathy - who literally has traveled the world on pocket change, staying with friends and friends of friends - was our top guest yet. She gave plenty of notice, didn't seem bored when we were too tired to do anything but order pizza and rent a movie, talked brilliantly of her travels (but not too much) and put the guest-bed sheets in the washer as she headed for the door. She didn't hog the hot water with a 45-minute shower as we were getting ready for work, and she helped with the dishes - but not while we were taking showers, instinctively knowing that our sickly plumbing scalds under pressure.
The worst thing about some houseguests is you get to know things you wouldn't otherwise know about your friends: the toothpaste on the sink, the case of empty Kit Kat wrappers in your trash, every single detail about Jeff that gets on Bette's nerves (and they weren't all rated PG).
I don't know much at all about Cathy - except that I'd love for her to come back.
She can even bring a beau.
Beth Macy, a features department staff writer, doesn't mind house guests so much that she'd move back to her home state of Ohio, where no one ever visited. Her column runs every other Thursday.
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