House Guests Are Like Fish

Why is this title true? As my cousin famously said, “Because both fish and house guests start to smell bad after a few days.” I immediately felt this to be true, from my own experience. If we plan to stay at someone’s house longer than three days, we’d better be part of the family.

This is why, when we planned our last trip abroad, we stayed with my cousin in London for just three nights on the way to Spain and two nights on the way back. This gave us a short, intense window of visiting, outings, and meals together. I knew they would be tired of us after three days because, let’s face it, having guests in your home is always disruptive.

Even when our favorite friends come to visit, we need to put on our game face. Before they arrive, we normally clean the house, make up the spare bedroom, vacate a bathroom for them, buy extra groceries, and plan meals and outings to entertain them.

While they are staying, we try to keep our mood cheerful and upbeat the whole time. We may even have to forego our afternoon nap to take them out somewhere interesting. We will not eat leftovers or beans on toast for dinner; we will prepare something nicer and serve dessert. We would never vegetate in front of the tv watching our usual gruesome murder series. We will either make pleasant conversation, play cards or table games, or choose a funny movie to share.

All these activities are exhausting. We don’t realize how tired we are until they leave, when we smile, wave, exhale a huge breath, and say, “Thank god, we have our quiet space back again.” Don’t pretend you are better than this! We all love our people, but this is a universal truth.

So, plan your visits accordingly friends, and remember, don’t become a smelly fish!

(photo by Harris Vo on Unsplash)

Please comment below and tell me about your own experience with entertaining.