Friday, May 15, 2009

House Guests: A How-To Guide

What should you do if you have house guests coming and you are too lazy to prepare meals, entertain them, or do anything other than lie around the house? I highly recommend that you, most of your children, and your guests all come down with the stomach flu.

It helps if you and your kids can get it first, thus evoking pity and help from said guests. Then, after several hours of that, be sure that they, too, become infected. If you're an A-level hostess, please try to wipe the toilet down with a Clorox wipe just before your guests need to throw up for the first time. It will help them feel loved and cared for.

If you manage to pull this off, your guests will not expect you to plan elaborate day trips, to spend money on restaurants, movies, and other activities, nor even to wine and dine them at home with your Martha Stewart-esque hostessing skills. You can even have a gourmet menu planned out for brownie points, but they won't want you to make the food anyway. They will look the other way as the laundry piles up in mounds on your bedroom floor--they know that you don't have the energy to fold and put away all those sheets, towels, pillowcases, and nearly every blanket in the house that has been barfed on, because they don't have the energy, either. Engaging conversation? Completely unnecessary.

Instead, your guests will want nothing rather than a turn in the bathroom, a couch or bed to lie on, and a little ginger ale to sip when they're feeling up to it. And those are the easiest kind of house guests I have ever had. The bad news? They may never want to come back.

10 comments:

TheQueen@TerrorsInTiaras said...

Oh, sad. Scrappy had those welcoming attributes as a host a couple of years ago when we were at her house for Christmas. It was great fun driving home for twelve hours and stopping at every rest stop to empty out the barf bags. Fun times.
The good new is, we do want to go back (and it only took two years to forget the great hostess skills she shared with us.) ;)
Hope you are all better soon!

Aly sun said...

Sad, yet so funny at the same time. That's terrible. I wonder what Martha would do....

Kim said...

Hope each and every one of you is feeling back up to par soon. Glad you have a sense of humor about it. Hope everyone else does as well. :)

A mother heart said...

what a bummer! i hope you are all feeling better!

Jeannetta said...

OH! I'm so sorry you had to live through this, but thanks for the giggle! :)
Hope you're all feeling as good as new soon!
Oink!

Tamara said...

Sounds like the best party ever! ;) And who wouldn't want to come back?

Scrappy said...

Oh no! I had heard that you had visitors, but I hadn't heard about this. That is so sad. I hope everyone is doing better. Your guests will want to come back just to see what they missed out on! :)

Sonja said...

Dang. it. I'm so sorry that you guys all had the yucks. I hope everyone is feeling better soon!

(I'm glad to see that your sense of humor didn't end up down the toilet too. :)

Prudy said...

Oh, darn. But still, Hee Hee Hee.

An Ordinary Mom said...

How dreadful! Hopefully everyone is better now!