Last week, we discussed my houseguest meltdown. 

I think we’re all familiar with my inability to play it cool.  

Rest assured this little sleepover was no exception. 

To begin with, the guys stayed at our house for all of six hours. 

That’s not hyperbole. 

They arrived at nine in the evening, ate dinner, and hit the hay. Then they were up at three for an early flight. 

And there I was, failing to play it cool before our guests even showed up. I fell apart over six measly hours! 

On the day of our guests’ arrival, I did a once-over of their rooms. With all appearing orderly and clean, I made up their beds, fresh towels laid neatly across the feet. I made sure outlets for phone charging were visible. 

But water. I forgot to set out water for them. Six hours in a host’s home with no water. Axl Rose might welcome people to the jungle, but I welcome them to the desert. 

Our guests arrived, reclining in our rec room — unraveling carpet, splintered bathroom door, paneling pulling away from its beams! — with their dinner. 

As their meals finished, one of our guests said, “Do you know what we really need to do?” 

And I did. I did know what they really needed to do! 

“See your rooms?!” I asked, as dorky and earnest as George McFly. 

But seeing their rooms was not, in fact, what they needed to do. 

What they needed to do was load their truck with trip supplies. 

Which took the better part of an hour. 

So of the six hours our guests stayed, some of it was spent outside of my very clean, very worn home. 

Good thing I weeded, right? That was important, what with our guests loading their truck outside in the dark of night. 

And arriving in the dark of night. 

And leaving in the dark of night. 

I would have gone to bed while they were outside. But, well, I didn’t trust my husband to show them the outlets.  

So I waited inside. 

Which was probably weird. Right? These guests — their stay had nothing to do with me. But there I sat, because I just had to show our friends the outlets. 

I got up at three with our guests and my husband.  

That’s weird, too, right? 

But I had a good reason! I did! 

If our guests wanted to shower, they’d have to use my bedroom shower. I thought it might feel disturbing to them if they crept past my sleeping form on their way to the bathroom. 

So yeah. I got up with them. 

They — they couldn’t get rid of me. 

Fran Lebowitz told Vogue that, as a houseguest, she’ll get up when she wants, wear her robe around the house, and had better be allowed to smoke inside. 

As carefree as Lebowitz is as a guest, I wanted to be as a host. I tried to convey a laissez-faire attitude. 

But that’s hard when the last thing you were laissez-faire about was your primary school career as a clarinetist. 

Never practiced yet made it to fourth chair and Europe. 

Huh. Maybe I should be laissez-faire about more things. 

In the morning, after our guests’ departure — real morning, not three o’clock morning — I stripped the beds, grumbling to myself about the water. 

One of our guests had used the sofa bed in our playroom — the domain of my teenage son and his friends. 

Daily habituation by gangly, ravenous, 7-Eleven devotees does things to a room. 

Unspeakable things. 

Cleaning the playroom for our guests had been no joke.  

But stripping those sheets once our guests left — well. 

I kneeled on the sofa bed, for leverage in pulling off the fitted sheet. 

The weight of my body pulled the sofa bed cushions away from the sofa bed arm. 

And in that yawning gap, I found Cheerios, M&M’s, goldfish crackers. Sour Patch Kids and Nerds. Skittles and Cookie Dough Bites. 

That our guest slept next to a smorgasbord of teenage dude snacks — I was crestfallen. 

All that cleaning. 

Had — had our guest found the disgusting horde of carbs in our sofa? 

“He has teenagers, too,” my mother-in-law said helpfully. “He’s probably seen worse.” 

Most definitely, I’d say. He’s tent camping above the Arctic Circle as we speak.  

No plumbing. 

So, yeah. He’s seen worse. 

But probably not in somebody’s house. 

Last week, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy published an editorial in The New York Times. Research suggests, he says, parents are overwhelmed. Stressed. Worried. 

Well duh, dude! We have sofa beds stuffed with M&M’s inches from a revered houseguest’s head! 

I texted my husband a picture of the horrors hiding in our sofa bed. “Do you think he noticed?” I asked. 

“He told me he snacked on it,” my husband joked in response. 

Well. 

At least one of us can play it cool.