Search for weekend getaway becomes a guest-ing game

by Beth Teitell
Wednesday, June 5, 2002

When you're as popular and as wealthy as I am (not very and not very, respectively), you have to work hard to have a nice summer, and by ``nice'' I mean a summer during which every weekend is spent enjoying yourself as a house guest at a different ``friend's'' beach cottage.

Actually, now that the summer's finally here, I can relax a bit. If you're second-homeless (but wily, like me), you learn an important lesson early on: the groundwork must be laid the previous fall, at the latest, or your efforts will seem too obvious, and more importantly, anyone worth visiting will already be booked.

(Disclaimer: If anyone reading this thinks she recognizes herself or her guest bedroom, I'm not talking about you - it's the other people. I really did mean what I said about how lovely your children are, and about maybe putting your client in my column in a flattering way.)

(Disclaimer 2: If anyone reading this is a media watchdog, I was just kidding about trading ink for an ocean view. I'm only saying it to hold onto my July 4 plans.)

I've wangled an invitation for every weekend this summer, but that's not as great as it sounds. Once I hit the seashore I've got to get back to work to ensure an invitation for summer 2003.

And the way to get invited back, as we professionals know, is to be the perfect guest.

Daily Schedule for the Perfect Guest

• Wake early, around 6 a.m. and play quietly with your host's children. If a dog is around, walk it. If a baby's in evidence, diaper it.

• Just as Mom and Dad are stirring, head out with a cheery wave, taking the towel you've brought with you, and driving the car you rented when you got off the ferry.

• Eat breakfast on the road, and then spend the day grocery shopping for dinner that night, making sure to get something to go with one of the many fancy wines you've brought. Cook enough so that there will be leftovers for everyone to take to the beach the next day. Lobster anyone?

• After dinner, send the family to a movie while you clean up, and retire to your room before they return home.

• Depart without incident.

  Handled correctly, your visit will provide a little break for your hosts, something to give them the strength for the next weekend, when a less desirable visitor descends.

  Sure, it's exhausting, but when you feel the sun shining on your face (or on the brim of your protective hat or on the thick mask created by repeated sunblock applications), you'll know it's all worth it.

  Or is it?

  After returning home from an exhausting Memorial Day visit, I did the math and concluded something: between the hostess gifts, the dawn wake-up call, the car rental, the cooking, the diapering, the relentless kissing up, it might be cheaper and easier to own my own summer home.

  I was getting all excited, imagining myself as a person who could refer to her ``little summer place,'' and say things like ``you should stop by if you're on the Vineyard,'' but then I remembered all the horror stories I'd heard about bad guests, guests who become squatters, who establish Memorial Day or Labor Day or the second weekend in August as ``theirs'' and force you to literally flee your own vacation home to break the cycle. ``Sorry, we'd love to have you that weekend, but we're visiting Richard's family then.''

  From what I've heard, termites can be easier to get rid of.

  Anyway, as we serial guests always say, TGIW - thank goodness it's Wednesday. I've got a few days to enjoy myself before the weekend hits.