We have a houseguest

Having someone staying in your house is sort of like an organism having an infection, except instead of antibodies and white blood cells engulfing the visitor you envelop them in food, chit-chat and entertainment instead.

Really, as an adult, your main goal when you have a houseguest is to avoid having the visitor leave your house shaking their head and muttering, "Wow, I thought I knew those people, but they're weird."

So how do you avoid that? Every family develops its own quirks, and how do you keep them away from the interlopers? It requires a certain amount of observation of so-called normal people and then a serious self-examination to see how your life differs from the norm.

You notice things and ask yourselves questions you never ask, like do we have too much junk food in the house? Is the refrigerator inappropriately full or empty? Is there too much beer? Is it strange that the liquor cabinet is locked or is that just what parents of teenagers do?

Do we speak in a dialect that only we understand? Do we talk to our pets as if they are people and people as if they are pets? And how many cats is too many anyway?

Is the house too dirty? Too clean? Does the house smell funny? Do we keep the thermostat at a level that is not well-suited to human beings? Has the decor been updated since we moved here 20 years ago? Is that okay? What is that thing on the windowsill? Who is that picture of, anyway? Does the visitor know him? How long has that been there? Is it okay to have ______ in the middle of the _______? Can you turn the TV on without an instruction sheet?

Is 6 kinds of coffee excessive? Do we really need that much butter? mustard? eggs? mayo? capers? How many kinds of pasta could one really need? If we have 12 is that okay?

You answer as many of these questions as you can and either breathe a sigh of relief, panic, or enter a state of unease somewhere in between. Somewhere in self-image limbo. It's a relief when they arrive.