The House Guests

Not much progress on ProngTwo this week, Internet. But for good reason! First, Hurratio XVII died. Which was obviously very tragic.

And then I had house guests.

They were the kind of house guests that happen to you. You know what I mean. The ones who call up and say "hey, great news! We're coming to visit you!" and you're all "wait... what? Who is this again?" But then you're too much of a pussy to just tell them that they're not really invited.

Let me start by saying that no matter how uninvited or intolerable the guest, I am a staunch defender of the Art of Hosting: guests must be made to feel welcome and comfortable at any cost. But I have paid dearly for this conviction. Oh yes, I HAVE PAID.

I thought it would be sort of tolerably lame. But OH GOD. It was one of the worst, longest, most relentlessly irritating weekends of my entire life. It is a miracle of epic proportions that I did not murder anyone or just throw myself in front of the subway.

It wasn't bad enough that they insisted that I accompany them to every single tourist-infested 'attraction' in the area (we went to the ROM and the CN Tower and the Science Centre AND the zoo!) For those of you who don't know me, I'm really more of a lounging-around-at-home-in-my-scanties type of weekender. Add a couple of clowns to the ROM/CN Tower/Science Centre/Zoo scenario, and you have a classic ProngTwo nightmare.

It wasn't bad enough that they commandeered my lone bedroom (with fan) so that I was forced to sleep, in the stifling heat, on the couch. And by 'sleep on the couch', I mean that I did not sleep for the entire duration of their four-day visit.

It wasn't enough that they are jointly allergic/averse to almost every ingredient on the planet, making it virtually impossible to cook a meal that everyone would 'safely' agree to consume. My teeth were ground down to tiny stumps while I attempted to buy groceries and prepare individually agreeable allergen-free home-cooked meals three times per day in between all the sight-seeing.

It wasn't enough that the 10-year-old daughter, while insisting that we visit each and every landmark in the city, ceaselessly complained that her legs were sore, she was too hot, the air smelled bad, the subway was too crowded, she was hungry, she was thirsty, she wanted her picture taken, she didn't want her picture taken, she didn't like the meals that were prepared for her, homeless people were weird, the animals at the zoo weren't moving around enough, the useless crap that had just been purchased for her wasn't as amusing as it should be, etc, etc.

Oh no! Sunday morning, just as I had finally drifted off to sleep at around 5:30 am, The Mom clomped into the living room, sat down on the couch next to my head and shuffled around until I was forced to 'wake up'. Then, she proceeded to regale me with the details of her childhood abuse and consequent therapy. For FOUR HOURS. There was no escape. Believe me I tried. I would've just burned the apartment down, but I couldn't get 30 seconds away from her to find the damn matches:

The Mom: I mean, I've been really trying to work through my issues with my Dad. But...

Me: Wow! Will you look at the time! Maybe we should wake up The Daughter and get this show on the road!

The Mom: Oh, let's just let her sleep. She's pretty tried after the CN Tower and the museum yesterday. She should rest up for the zoo and the science centre today. We really do want to see everything! So anyway, then my therapist brought up the idea of doing a victim statement...

Me: ...

I literally skipped out of Pearson Airport on Monday morning. If I'd had bunches of flowers, I'd have flung the petals hither and yon with festive flare.

That being said, a House Guest Disaster Relief Program has been implemented in the form of music-playing, laundry, sleeping (IN MY OWN BED) and assorted bouts of non-tourist-trap-related shenanigans. Regular ProngTwo operations will be back in effect in short order.