Guests' Sleeping Arrangements

     Charley and I had been dating for six months when I took him to meet my parents at their home in Connecticut. After the introductions, my mother escorted him down to the finished basement. "I made this cot up for you," she said, depositing fresh towels on the bed. "The bathroom's at the top of the stairs."
      Charley joined me later in the den to watch television. "Where are you going to sleep?" he asked.
     "My old bedroom's upstairs," I said, nudging my thigh against my parents' poodle, Cherie, so Charley could squeeze next to me.
     "Is there a guest room upstairs?"
     "Yes."
     "Does this sofa open into a bed?"
     I looked away from the t.v. and directly into his eyes. "It does," I said, grinning.
     "Then why can't I sleep here?"
     "My parents probably wanted us separated by two floors. Besides, this is where Cherie sleeps."
     "Well, now I know where I rank in the pecking order."
     The next morning I asked Charley if he'd slept well. "Not at all," he said. "My bed was right next to the oil burner. Every time it went on, I woke up."
     Somehow, our relationship survived. By the time we were engaged, Charley had moved up to the sleeper sofa next to Cherie.



     My hair dripped into the sink behind me at the beauty parlor. A woman in the next chair explained the preparations she'd made before her granddaughter visited with her boyfriend.
     "My guest room has twin beds. There was no other place for them to sleep, but I figured they'd move the beds together. Since my bedroom backed up to their wall and I didn't want to listen to their shenanigans all night, I put chocks under the feet of their beds so they couldn't move them.
     "Well, that didn't stop them! They must have crowded into one bed and I didn't sleep a wink all night."



     Friends from Massachusetts planned to visit us in Florida. After we'd decided on a date, I sent a list of attractions and restaurants they might enjoy, if they wanted diversions from the beach and pool. Finally I received a call.
     "Pam, we have one concern and I hope you don't mind if I ask you this. Do you have a guest room with twin beds? Our sleep cycles are different now that we're in our seventies and we try not to wake each other up. Also, I've got to warn you that Pete snores. I'm used to it, but I hope he doesn't disturb you. Sometimes even I can't sleep."
     "Oh, don't worry about Pete's waking us! Our master bedroom is on the other side of the condo. And yes, we have twin beds in one guest room."
     "Perfect! Just one last question. Sorry to be such a pain! Is there a bathroom close to the twin bedroom? We have to get up a lot during the night."
     "You'll have a bathroom right outside your bedroom door. And our grandchildren's night light." We both cracked up.

If you have any stories of guests' sleeping arrangements, I'd love to hear them! Please leave them in the "Comments" box below.

Bad Timing

Why is it that when you're leaving for a long trip the car won't start?  Or you're waiting for house guests to arrive and a pipe bursts?  Or you're expecting ten for a holiday dinner and the oven konks out?


Several years ago we'd packed our SUV to begin the drive from Massachusetts to Florida.  STUFF for eight months was wedged in like a puzzle.  Golf clubs and tennis rackets slid behind the front seats.  Boxes of paperwork, books, and computer equipment lay on the flattened trunk where the back seats had been. Suitcases spread toward the rear door.  Coats and jackets topped the mound, while shoe bags and boots plugged the holes.  We set the alarm on the house and adjusted our front seats.  Charley turned the key in the ignition.

NOTHING!  Over and over - not even a whine.  Battery dead overnight.

We called the dealer, who promised a tow truck, which arrived an hour later, which had no luck charging the battery, which then needed a tow.  Only one problem:  the BMW couldn't be towed in "Park," and without the ignition on, the gears wouldn't shift to "Neutral."  Oh yes, one other problem:  the over-ride access to the gear shift was under the cup console between the front seats and needed a wrench.  Guess where the BMW geniuses had stored the wrench?  In the trunk.  Guess what else was in the trunk?

We unloaded the car, piled everything in the garage, and watched as our BMW inched its way up the tow truck in "Neutral."  When the car arrived two days later, we made sure it started before we packed it up again, and we never turned it off till we hit the first rest stop 200 miles away.

*************

One son and daughter-in-law were hosting fourteen of us for Christmas Eve several years ago. On the way home from the airport after picking us up on Dec. 23rd, our son received a call from home.

"What's up?" he said.

"We have a flood."

"What?  Where?"

"A pipe was leaking under the kitchen sink and water began pouring into the basement.  I called Serve-Pro and they'll be here soon."

"Unbelievable!  Did you shut off the main water line?"

"Yes. I've got buckets in the basement but there's a big hole in the ceiling down there."

"We're about forty-five minutes away.  Call me when they get there."

Serve-Pro came and cleaned up.  They left behind a blower/dryer in the middle of the kitchen, a wet vac in the basement, and a new kitchen pipe for the holiday.

"You really shouldn't use this sink after Christmas," the man said before he left. "There's mold under the cabinets and it's unhealthy.  All the cabinets will have to be torn out."

"That means a new kitchen, I guess," my daughter-in-law said.  "We weren't planning on it this soon."

"Well, don't worry about Christmas Eve," I said, giving her a big hug.  "We don't care what we eat, as long as we're together.  We can always order pizza! Why not sit down and dad and I will put the children to bed?"

The next day I set the dining room table while our daughter-in-law emptied the lower cabinets.  That evening fourteen of us enjoyed a beef tenderloin roast with Lyonnaise potatoes, fresh green beans, spaghetti squash, and Tiramisu that had been stashed in the refrigerator.  We danced around the blower that continued to rattle in the middle of the kitchen, grateful we didn't have to wash dishes in the bathtub upstairs.

************

A friend of ours was an avid tennis player and agreed to substitute for another team. During the third set in a three-hour match, she injured her Achilles Tendon.  The surgeon ordered a "boot."

"You'd better take it easy for a while, till we can confirm whether it's torn," he said.

"What about Christmas dinner?" her husband said.  "We can always go out."

"No, eight other people are planning to come, and I've already prepared some things ahead.  We'll carry on."

Deidre stood like a stork on one leg making the canapes and setting the table the day before. She hopped from sink to refrigerator preparing two beef Wellingtons and four vegetables on Christmas morning, then went to get dressed.

At 3:30 p.m. she turned on the oven. The oven refused to oblige. "Honey, we have no oven!"

"Try resetting it.  Maybe you didn't hit the proper sequence.  I'll check the breaker."

Deidre tried again, following instructions in the manual. Still nothing.

"OK, now what??  They'll be here at 5:00."

"Call Kim.  Maybe we can use her oven, since she's coming anyway and lives around the corner."

At 5:00 the other eight guests arrived.  Mark served them a drink and Deidre's famous canapes, heated in the microwave.  At 6:00 Deidre announced, "I'm so sorry, but I'm afraid we have no oven!  If you'll excuse us, Kim and I are going to drive to her house to cook your dinner.  Her ovens have been pre-heating."

Fifty minutes later, the ladies removed the four vegetables and two beef Wellingtons from Kim's ovens and nestled them in towels and blankets in the trunk so they wouldn't wobble.  Kim slammed the trunk and got behind the wheel.

She turned the key in the ignition...NOTHING.

"Call Mark!  He can come get the dinner."

The ladies went around to the trunk to open it for Mark's arrival.  STUCK!

"Call Mark back and have him bring my husband with his keys," Kim said.

Together the foursome jimmied the trunk open and transferred everything to Mark's car. Dinner was served at 7:00.

Three nights later Deidre hosted a birthday party for Mark.  Sixty people enjoyed her hot canapes, heated in another neighbor's oven.

Houseguests from Hades

It's the "high season" in south Florida.  "Snowbirds" cruise around with convertible tops down to soak up the sun.  Permanent residents of Florida are too afraid of melanomas to ever think of doing that!  The beaches are crowded, and all the cabanas taken.  We watch northerners dive right into the Atlantic, without regard for the purple flag that means men-of-war!

There is also an abundance of houseguests. Houseguests and "snowbirds" take up the tennis courts and get all the restaurant reservations.  They think they are whispering in movies when they are really talking - always right behind us.  Their cell phones are never turned off, in case the kids left behind have decided to elope or have flunked out of school!

I asked some of my south Florida friends if they had any "Houseguest from Hell" stories.  Some of the worst offenders were members of the family!

There was the daughter who had a few too many wines and decided when she came in to make herself a grilled cheese in the toaster oven...then fell asleep, forgetting the oven was on.  The cheese caught fire, the fire singed the cabinets, the cabinets smoldered till the smoke woke everyone up.  Mom and Dad ended up with a whole new kitchen!

Another daughter wouldn't eat anything her mother prepared until she got up to search for condiments. "I can't eat this without mayo!" or "I need ketchup to eat this!" she told mom.

How about the son and daughter-in-law that brought their beloved "Bitsy" with them, a Chihuahua which peed all over mom's white shag carpet?  Or the daughter and son-in-law who brought their Airedale, which chewed off the leg of an antique loveseat (yes that was me!)?

Or the son-in-law who came but disagreed with his father-in-law politically and wouldn't speak to him for an entire week?

Our neighbor's daughter in Massachusetts was getting married to a Brit and our neighbors didn't have enough bedrooms for the groom's family.  So I offered a couple of ours. We ended up with a London barrister (and his family) in our place.  The Brit couldn't get his fill of our good ole Kentucky bourbon, which was mighty expensive in London!  Not only did he swill down every drop of our bourbon and then switch to scotch, but he sat in his white wig of curls till 2 a.m., while Charley nodded obediently at his stories!

An ideal guest has no food allergies or medical emergencies; stays out of the host/hostess' bedroom; cleans up his kids' messes; can make his own breakfast; helps out with the preparation of meals or at least cleans up; finds the pool, beach, or walking trails on his own; brings a book, laptop, or Ipad with him; reuses towels; does his own laundry; and strips the bed when he leaves.

Surrounded by ideal houseguests


One guest did not fit any of this description.  A friend of ours tells the story of a guest from Canada who came to stay after his wife passed away.  He spent a lot of time crying in his room. The guest was fortunate to be staying with a hostess who was a gourmet cook!  On the first morning, our friend prepared a breakfast of pancakes and bacon, fresh-squeezed juice, scrambled eggs, homemade coffee cake, and coffee.  When the guest appeared in his pajamas, he carried a Ziplock bag of granola and declared, "I never eat anything but this granola for breakfast!"  Nor did he approve of the menus being offered.  After breakfast he proceeded to grocery shop for HIMSELF by borrowing the host's car.  With the grocery shopping done, he disappeared.  When he returned in his wet bathing suit, the hostess warned him about the dangers of rip currents in the Ocean.  "Oh, I haven't been in the Ocean.  I've been swimming in the intracoastal waterway, looking for manatees!"  Back in his marble bathroom, he slipped, and a bottle of herbal bath oils shattered over the floor.  The white marble remains a lovely tint of aqua to this day.  Our friend, the hostess, heard a rumor that her guest had found a girlfriend in the Miami area. No more need for crying!  Or inviting him back!

Finally, the story of the keys.  A guest in Connecticut went out in the morning to jog (high marks there!), grabbing one of the host's jackets from the closet on his way out.  He finished the wooded loop once and proceeded to start around again, when he noticed a set of keys on the trail.  He picked them up, dumped them in his jacket, and continued.  Going around the second time, he started thinking about the keys.  There was no way he could return them to the owner, since a jogger would have to retrace the path for miles and it was nearly time for work.  Besides, his wife was always telling him he hoarded things like a squirrel.  At the end of that loop, he took the keys out of the pocket, cocked his arm, and threw them into the woods as far as he could.

Later that day, his hosts invited him to accompany them to an art show.  The host and hostess scoured the house but couldn't find the car keys anywhere.  This is the first time they have seen the real story!

In the interest of total disclosure, Charley and I are still "snowbirds," spending almost eight months a year in Florida before heading to Massachusetts.
Let me hear some of your worst nightmares with visitors in the "Comments" section below.