The Relatives Visit

There were four, two men and two women. Two were twice my size, one vertically and one horizontally. They paraded in with tons of hiking boots and flip-flops, sleeping bags, clothes, Easter baskets, personal electronics, and gifts for me of an Elvis mug and a marvelous egg-shaped motion-sensor night light truly needed in the bathroom. Moving their stuff from the van into my house and getting settled took a full 20 minutes. They arrived hungry.

I love hosting them every Easter. My possessions vanished beneath theirs and a ton of wet towels because everyone shampooed and showered daily in my half-bath, the only bath there is, so I got in there before 6 a.m. or after 10:30 p.m. My Missouri provided beautiful weather, flowering trees, and birds. We ate barbecue, Steak 'n' Shake, frozen yogurt, homemade pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, Chinese buffet, Trader Joe's mac 'n' cheese, dyed Easter eggs, chocolate cake, a truckload of bagged snacks, and for Easter dinner came yet another person for a truly full 1100-square-foot house that rocked with fun. My brother-in-law read aloud from an inspirational book called Jacob the Baker and I rolled on the floor laughing to bust a gut.

They flung themselves out on carpets and snored. They relaxed and read or scrolled through their Facebook or strolled around the property or sat around the firebowl. They freaked when they saw ticks on them. (I showed them what to do.) We visited antique malls, Walmart, Trader Joe's (they'd never been to one), the farm store to see live chicks and baby bunnies, the Methodist church, and a state park.

The morning they packed and departed they granted my special request to vacuum the vacated rooms, and cheerfully did so in a few minutes, saving me 2 hours of my life, and with those hours I laundered all the towels and ate all the foil-covered little chocolate eggs they had brought.

And how was your Easter?