Well, it could be worse, I guess. True story... one of the butchers I used to work with had this "friend". This friend would literally spend "Joe's" entire work day in his car. In all weather - freezing, boiling, hurricanes. On the rare occasions the "friend" ever came in the store, he would lurk outside the meat room. Alarming.

Anyway, how annoying for you!! Did she expect you to drop your life and do everything with/for her? Is there a section in your local paper that has things to do nearby? A movie theatre? A mall?! And you are not a chump. You shouldn't have to babysit your friends.

redvixen, was the "friend" a pot dealer or something?

I hate houseguests and avoid them at all costs. You have my sympathies.

Redvixen, your work stories always remind me of when my dad worked the meat counter at Acme when I was growing up. There's something about that setting that's just ripe for anecdotes.

Kinky Friedman calls them "housepests".

I had a friend who visited us in Miami for a week and completely took over the bathroom, spreading her various hair care products, lotions, and make-up all over the counter and leaving piles of wet towels on the floor. The apartment reeked of her perfume a month after she left. She also pouted to no end at only getting to visit the zoo once. Not an easy gal to please, I'm afraid.

I spent my junior year of college abroad in England at UEA in Norwich; a college friend of mine, Angela, was there for the same year. That spring, she was descended upon (with two days' notice) by one of her roommates from the previous year, who showed up in England with a suitcase full of salami* and an attitude full of snot. For two weeks, she tortured Ange (and me, by extension), to the point of bullying her way to attending the Stone Roses concert at Spike Island with me -- even though a few months earlier Ange and I had actually cut our spring break trip short in order to be back in England in time to buy our tickets together! Her reasoning was that Ange was being a bad host by going to a concert without her (the fact that we had been planning on going to the concert for several months was immaterial).

I was therefore afforded the privilege of having to sit next to this woman for eight hours on a bus to Widnes and then having to hang out with her for the entire day at the concert -- which, afterwards, she opined was the worst thing she'd ever seen, and berated me all the way back to Norwich for forcing her to come along.

Reader, the phrase "unbridlded hatred" springs to mind.


*though she had never been to Britain before, she was certain the food would suck and that she would need to bring her own because she already knew that British people were "too stupid to know how to cook." She had drawn this conclusion, she said, from watching TV. As you do.

I have a new appreciation for the friend who visited me in Venice and almost immediately said, "OK, I'm here for five days, on the third night I've made hotel reservations in Verona so I'll be gone that whole day and a half, and here's my itinerary for the rest of the days; what would you like to join me on?" And bought me dinner and drinks a lot. And had not really traveled all that much, but brought many guidebooks along so that she could look things up on her own. And ended up hooking up with one of my friends, and so ended up spending most of her nights at his place.

She was the best houseguest EVER. All the fun, very little of the hassle.

I just bought tickets for Kona. A high school friend. He's been bugging me forever to come over. We had a mutual friend Rick, back in college, who was one of those stay-forever housepests. We still joke about it.

Anyway, I said a week, he said more than a week. I have made a two-night revervation over at the Volcanoes National Park to break it up.

I am very sensitive about overstaying a welcome.

My ex once invited a stranger to stay with us. Turned out the girl was bulemic. She left before we got up in the morning. We woke up to a toilet overflowing with really disgusting things. The ex tried to beg off cleaning it up by saying "I'll be late for class." That didn't fly.

I suppose I should have known better, because this happened a couple years after the ex invited a German stranger to stay with us. We already had a Belgian and a Brit staying in our tiny apartment, though. (The Brit/Belgian couple had just met the German at some Buddhist retreat in East Texas.) Anyway, I made the German sleep in a tent in the yard.

In retrospect, I realize this wasn't really fair to the German girl. But it was a pretty good way of getting back at the ex, the Brit, and the Belgian. So, on the whole, I don't feel all that bad about it.

That sounds like a great joke set-up: A Brit, a Belgian and a German girl walk into mudpuppie's house....

And in further hindsight, maybe the bulemic was karmic repayment for making the German sleep in a tent in the yard? I did turn the automatic sprinkler system off, though...

Jrossi, I got a million of 'em.

Hmm. I thought this thread would be somehow Don Knotts related.

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It's amazing how oblivious some house guests can be. But, I guess that's the price you pay for living in a interesting place that everyone wants to visit. Move to a generic American Midwestern City™ and I guarantee any house guest problems will be greatly reduced.

wow, occhiblu! The perfect houseguest! I have a college friend staying with me right now whom I really like, but her lack of an itinerary is making me crazy. I have no idea what's expected of me and when- everything just happens when it happens.

"everything just happens when it happens."

Sounds like an orgasm.

Pie, to answer your earlier question, (sorry I didn't get back sooner)... We did learn later that "Joe's" wife had a bit of a drug habit, and if the "friend" hung around Joe's house while Joe was at work, they'd spend the mortgage money getting high. So Joe would bring him to work with him, so he knew where he was. There was a time that the wife and the "friend" ran off together. Joe knew as soon as the money they took ran out that she'd be back. She was.

Jrossi, that's the same supermarket chain I work for. It's true, the stories would curl your hair. I'm often tempted to write a book.

You should! My grandmother worked there right up until she retired and she doesn't have half the tales my dad does from his much shorter gig at the meat counter. (And since this was in NE Philly, they actually worked at the Ac-uh-me. Gotta add that extra syllable.)