The Good, the Bad, and the House Guest

When it comes to your bathroom, some things are sacrosanct

Eileen Wiedbrauk
6 min readMar 22, 2019
Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash

I’m not the sort of person who really does house guests.

At least not frequently or well.

There is far too much thought and work that has to go into inviting someone or someones into my most holy and private domain.

First there is a panic-fueled whirlwind of tidying up. Because while it makes perfect sense that 80% of my kitchen table is covered with an ongoing project that’s really just too much work to pack up (and honestly, who really needs an eating space larger than their plate most days?), letting someone see that I am a real human being who lives that way is a no. Hard pass.

Ditto for the pile of clean laundry on my bedroom chair.

This is followed by an attempt to clean, vacuum, or sanitize every surface the guest will come in contact with.

The guest sheets, which were put away clean but haven’t been touched in months, must be recleaned for freshness.

The bathroom sink, which is cleaned regularly, must also be recleaned just in case there’s an ew-factor I hadn’t realized yet but I would totally realize mid-guest-stay if I weren’t to reclean it.

--

--

Eileen Wiedbrauk

Writer. Geek. Coffee addict. Former editor. MFA grad. Odyssey Workshop alum. Library fangirl. Escaped cubicle minion. Home cook. On a mission for better health.