Generally, I am not a big fan of houseguests, particularly those of the overnight variety. Relatives excluded, visitors strewn about the house tend to sour my spirits, vaulting my borderline petulant manner into an escalated state of grumpiness. However, when those visitants are five snowbound seventeen-year old boys bent on fleecing my fridge; occupying my recliner and filling my domicile with painfully loud music, this agitated elder whizzes right past grumpy, steaming towards inconsolable.
Please don’t misunderstand, my son Will’s friends are very fine fellows indeed. In fact several of them have become such frequent visitors that I am considering claiming them on my taxes next year. Although the revolving door on Windsor Avenue welcomes a variety of visitors of all shapes and sizes, the core group of Paul, Chad, Doug and Ian seem to have taken root. Rarely a day goes by without one, if not all, of the posse present and accounted for.
The afternoon prior to the “Great Snow” a plot was afoot for a planned stranding at our house. In preparation Janet braved the madness of the supermarket to secure the necessary supplies, calculating her purchases for an overnight or perhaps two night hunker down. My intrepid wife could not have imagined that the gang intended to ride this event out until spring!
Gazing through a backdoor window the following morning, I could see Shiloh (our Beagle-mix) disappearing and reappearing into the snow, struggling valiantly to find a spot to deposit his previous meal. Slowly my back began to ache in anticipation of the shoveling that awaited Janet and me. In the den (a common area commandeered by Will and his troops) lay the slumbering forms of our guests, exhausted from a challenging night of Madden Football and Guitar Hero. The remnants of abandoned potato chip bags, scores of empty bottles, and pizza sauce stained plastic plates littered every flat surface in the room.
Repairing to the living room, I plopped myself down on our couch, only to sink like a torpedoed battleship into the frame of the furniture. Apparently, during the wee hours of the morning, someone had cleverly removed the couch-bed mattress (added comfort for those unfortunates who had to sleep on the floor) from the sofa where I was now trapped.
With one foot free and the rest of my body wedged deeply in a mixture of cushions, springs and metal, I tried to extricate myself – my muffled cries unheard by the snoozing mattress thieves who were still in a state of hibernation. Eventually, like a burrowed groundhog, I emerged from my upholstered prison, unnoticed and unaided.
Due to the possibility of more snow arriving later on that first day, Janet and I decided to forgo the digging out period and remain indoors. Not so for the boys who awakened at the crack of two and decided to revisit their childhood with a day of sledding.
Unfortunately none of our boarders had packed any additional clothes to wear during their stay, prompting Will to rummage through my closet and drawers for warm clothes for his buddies to wear. Paul and Chad (both 6’4″) found some too large sweatshirts and too short sweatpants to wear, as did Doug and Ian. That is not to say that I am fat mind you – on the contrary, I am simply too short for my weight. When they returned every hat, glove, pant and warm shirt that fit me was sopping wet and tossed on the floor.
In the space of thirty-five minutes the four twelve-packs of chicken which Janet had bought the previous day were reduced to rumor status. Twelve two-liter bottles of Coca-Cola met their match during that four day period and I began to think that we would have to fill pots with snow and boil the flakes lest we perish from thirst.
When the gang was not eating they were either on their laptops Skype-ing girls (sort of like a video conference, but with lots of giggling) who were similarly snowbound, watching movies, battling X-Box, or playing music in a tiny room where Will’s drums reside. Fellow parents, the only thing worse than having a drummer in your home is having that drummer’s musical friends stranded in that same home at the same time. As the accumulating drifts rose outside, I knew that there was no escape.
Pouring the contents of a large bottle of Extra Strength Excedrin into a candy dish, I was able to prevail though numerous attempts at “Smoke on the Water” and “Give it to me” until my overwhelmed brain veered into a pleasant state of semi-consciousness. I would remain in that blissful stage for the remainder of the weekend and through Monday when the horde eventually dispersed.
While I am quite thankful that Will’s friends feel so comfortable in our home and that they are really wonderful young men, I now can add the irrational fear of my own living room couch to my mounting list of personal issues.
Strangely, I did notice that I cast a shadow when I crawled out from under the sofa, thus signifying a longer winter than expected. Clearly, we are going to need more chicken.
By Jon Kaufman [email protected]
