Summers at Rustic Lodge

House Guests Whatever possesses us to invite people up here? Veteran guests, ones who have been up many times, are fine--they bring supplies, do the chores, entertain themselves, go to bed early, and hardly count as guests-- but why do we invite new people? First of all, we have to get the place ready for them, which means really cleaning the bathroom, not just swiping at the sink with a towel. Then we have to get rid of all evidence of bats and spiders because house guests really freak out over bats especially, and we know better than to even mention them. We need to make up beds and clear away all our own stuff that we like to have lying all over the house (like the staple gun on the hall table for the screen door project that we still mean to complete). And we’d better make a garbage run because we know they’ll create a lot of trash, promiscuously throwing paper stuff in the garbage cans instead of into the paper bags we burn every day. Don’t they have two kids in diapers? Those will fill up the garbage cans in a day or two! Can’t they potty train that three-year-old? And speaking of potties, house guests never understand our delicate plumbing, the fragile septic system that will digest only one kind of toilet paper AND NOTHING ELSE. THAT MEANS NOTHING! Our old toilet has only so many flushes in it per season, but we know they will insist on flushing after every little use. Do the old mattresses smell too much of mildew? Can we spray them with something? Should we get new ones? Are the thin ragged towels and moth-eaten blankets too disreputable? And what about those carpenter ants that make a new pile of sawdust on the guest room bed pillow every day--how can we hide that? Suddenly, we look at our beloved old camp the way a newcomer will see it, and we realize how shabby it all is: those piles of brush in back by the drive, paint peeling off the screen doors, the fur of dust on the Mayflower model on the mantle. And look at those skylights--cobwebs like curtains. When was the last time those windows were washed, 1930? Even the outdoors looks bad--the waterfront especially looks like a dump. The pump house roof is held down by two heavy rocks. That pile of old dock sections isn’t really hidden by the ferns, and the flag pole seems more crooked than we remembered. What we used to find rustic and charming, looks run down and uncared for. The house guests haven’t even arrived yet, and they’ve made us hate our camp. It takes a day or two to clean and repair. Then we have to think about laying in real food instead of the noodles and crackers we’ve been eating. Meals. Sigh. No more grazing. It takes another day to plan breakfasts, lunches and dinners, take the ferry into town, fill the pickup truck with provisions, schlep them down the hill and find places to put them on the already stuffed kitchen shelves and tiny refrigerator. We’d better buy gallons of drinking water--you know they won’t like the rusty water from the well. And booze! What do they drink, anyway? We should probably buy some ice. We worry about the weather. If it’s not sunny and warm, we know that they will not have a good time. We love a rainy day here--sitting by the fire, putting together a jigsaw puzzle, playing cards, reading--but we know they’ll hate it. They’ll be restless and demand hourly weather forecasts even after we tell them that predictions are not accurate up here between two of the Great Lakes. Besides, we don’t even have a radio, let alone a TV. Remember the house guest who used to sit in his car every morning to get a weather report on his car radio? They think of their time up here as their “vacation,” and they will feel cursed by bad weather. They will take personally what we accept as natural and interesting. They won’t have the right clothes. We told them and told them, bring wool, bring fleece, bring rain gear and socks--it can get very cold at night. Bring what you wear skiing. They said yeah, yeah, but they’ll show up with a couple of sweatshirts and complain about how cold they are. And they always bring the wrong shoes, expensive leather athletic models that will get wet the first day and never dry, or slippery city sandals that are treacherous on the steep rocky paths. Finally they’ll run around barefoot and stub their tender toes and pick up splinters from the docks, or even find a rusty nail, and we’ll probably have to make a run to the emergency room in town, most likely at night when we’d have to order a special ferry. Or they’ll bring their dog who will have some kind of emergency--a crisis brought on by eating a dead fish, or an encounter with a porcupine or skunk. He’ll fight with the other dogs up here, or he’ll bark maniacally at everyone on the path or get stung by bees--doesn’t that dog have allergies?