The time that Mormon ball player peed with the door open

During our eight years living in New York, Hubby and I possessed an uncanny knack for attracting house guests.  Who knows why, really, since the studio apartment we dwelled in for the first four years was anything but spacious: the only thing separating the bedroom from the living area was a flowery sheer curtain.  I suppose it was because we lived in New York, and everyone wants to visit the big apple at one point or another, don't they?

Hubby and I entertained a plethora of people in that cozy little apartment, the record being five adults and two children at one time.  We enjoyed having visitors, and most of these souls were lovely guests, though a few of them behaved rather...unsatisfactorily.

Have I ever told you the story of the worst house guests we’ve had to date?  It's a tale I can only refer to as:

The time that Mormon guy peed with the door open.

It must have been around  2003, back when Hubby and I weren't married or even engaged yet.  (For practical purposes I'm still going to refer to him as Hubby, though, because he gets creeped out when I use his real name.)

I have an uncle who umpires for a wooden bat baseball league, and sometimes he'll help ball players find “host families” to lodge with over the summer.  Often times uncle would ask his own family to be one of these “host families.”  Their collective answer: a resounding no.

It’s not that my family members aren’t generous people, it’s just…well, the idea of opening up their homes to complete strangers just doesn’t hold that much appeal to them. 

That summer my mother must have told her brother 'no' a hundred times.  She would not be hosting a ball player and that was final.  Final, that is, until the day she actually met one of the athletes in question, when my uncle brought one along to a family barbecue.  This proved to be a highly effective tactic, indeed.  It turned out this person was a very polite young man from Utah whose wife would be flying out for two weeks.  They wouldn't be able to afford a hotel, and he didn't want her to have to bunk with the rest of the guys.

Somewhere pigs must have been flying because my parents suddenly agreed that the couple would be welcome in their home.

When Ma called to tell me the news, I was definitely stunned: “You mean strangers are going to be staying in your house?  What are you, nuts?”  I couldn’t wait to relay the news to Sissy and inform her that a strange couple would be sleeping in her childhood bedroom.  A young married couple who hadn't seen each other all summer, if you get my drift.  Eeeew.

My mother's voice turned angry: “Do NOT call your sister and don't make fun of me for trying to do a nice thing!”  Apparently I'd hit a nerve.  I think she may have even hung up on me.

I don't know why it was bothering Sissy and I so much, especially seeing as neither one of us even lived in our parent's home anymore.  But bother us it did.  It bothered us to our cores.

The day of arrival came, and Ma was just getting ready for work when the doorbell rang.  It was the ball player, coming to pick up a set of spare keys and drop off his luggage.  She wasn't expecting him until that evening; she hadn’t even gotten a chance to vacuum his bedroom yet!  The guy explained that his wife was flying in from Utah late that night and he wasn’t sure what time they'd be home.  Ma told him any time was fine with her and showed him into Sissy's old room so he could drop off his bags.  She went back downstairs and he left a couple of minutes later.

By this time my mother was running really late for work, but she figured she still had time to vacuum the room.  She wondered if this would be a violation of privacy, seeing as he’d already put his bags in there, but she decided it wouldn't be a big deal.  After all, it would only take a minute and she obviously wouldn’t touch any of his bags.

Ma tentatively pushed open the door, vacuum in hand, and...horror of horrors!  Sweet Baby Jesus!  There, strewn all over the floor, bed and pillows were…ROSE PETALS!!  There were rose petals absolutely EVERYWHERE!  A card and a small gift had also been left on the bed.

Had this young man actually scattered rose petals all over my sister’s childhood bedroom?  And had he then simply shut the door and left?  Apparently, he had.  A detail you should know about my sister’s bedroom is that her door doesn't even shut properly!  This guy really had some brass ones.

Holy f*cking guacamole.  Was my mother running a SEX DEN here?  She closed the door, more than a little disturbed, and left for work.  She didn’t bother vacuuming. 

Sissy and I were appropriately horrified when we got wind of this latest detail in the saga of the house guests.  Sissy even went so far as to vow she would never sleep in that bed again.

It turned out the couple didn't come home that first night, opting to instead spend it in a hotel.  After that the week passed rather uneventfully.  The couple didn’t bother with my parents all that much, coming and going without a lot of chitchat.  It was as if Ma and Dad were running a bed and breakfast, albeit an x-rated, rose petal strewn bed and breakfast.  Bizarre.

I still thought it was kind of weird, but I started to feel badly.  Had I been too harsh for making fun of my parents for trying to do a good deed?  I felt guilty for mocking their new found hospitality.  (Living away from my family often turned me into a giant, heaping bowl of mush.)  I was in this frame of mind when Ma casually mentioned over the phone that the couple were planning a trip to New York to attend a Yankees game.  “They don’t have a lot of money, so they'll be taking the bus back to Boston after the game...”

In a moment of weakness I heard myself utter, “They can stay with us.  We can show them around.”  Was I for real?  What had gotten into me?  I apologized profusely to Hubby.  But honestly, how bad could these people be?  And it would only be for a day or two.

I was still at work when our guests arrived, but unlucky for Hubby he was already home and was therefore forced to play host without me.  When I met up with them later, we decided to get a bite to eat and then go back to sightseeing.  The meal was unremarkable, minus the fact that while we were perusing our menus the wife asked what basil was.

"What's basil?"

"It's an herb," I heard my future husband say. 

This was all kind of odd, eating here at The Last Stop Cafe with two complete strangers.  I longed for a goblet of cold white wine, but alas, I didn't want to ostracize our guests; my parents had already informed us these people were devout Mormons and abstained from alcohol and caffeine for religious beliefs.  I felt a little awkward even sipping my Pepsi.

We spent a mildly uncomfortable evening sightseeing and then headed back to the apartment.

And here’s where the story really begins to turn…peculiar.  Now, I'm not sure quite WHY, but somehow I got it into my head that it might be a "nice thing to do" if we gave the Mormons our bed.  (Isn't it a miracle Hubby goes along with my antics?)  But honestly, our place was so tiny I figured this would be easier than having them spread out in the living room and us having to tiptoe around them while we got ready for work the next morning.  No, I decided I would take the air mattress, Hubby would take the couch, and our guests could take our bed.  After all, they'd been apart all summer.  (Another good deed.  I may have been living in sin and stuff but damn I was such a good person.)

I couldn't sleep.  It was a little unusual, after all, having two strangers curled up in our bed, just a few feet away. 

I laid there in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling, when suddenly I heard a noise.  The ball player was getting up!  I quickly closed my eyes and felt him walk past me into the bathroom.  Being a studio apartment, the bathroom was only inches away from the couch where Hubby lie sleeping; my air mattress was about two feet away from the bathroom. 

I kept my eyes closed and heard the toilet seat being lifted, and then the sound of peeing; curiously, the only thing I didn't hear was...the bathroom door being shut!  In a panic, I opened my eyes and saw that the bathroom door was wide open!  This dude was pissing with the DOOR OPEN!  What the?

Was this kid for real?  He finished up his pee and walked back to bed, and suddenly I felt afraid.  Very, very afraid.  My already overactive imagination went into frantic overdrive.  What kind of a madman pisses with the door open in front of people he'd just met that very same day?  When he’s stone cold sober, no less?  I really couldn't sleep after that.  How could I, when there was a possible lunatic psychotic in my apartment?  And to think he'd been staying with my parents for over a week!  Could this person be dangerous?

Hubby was sound asleep.  I sidled over to the couch and tried to whisper in his ear "that guy just peed with the door open, babe!" but it was no use.  This was a tale that would have to wait until morning.  If we survived the night, that is.

Daylight came, the Mormons left, and life went on.  When Ma called to see how things went, I smugly relayed each gory little detail, in true I told you so fashion.  (The basil...the pissing...)  There was no explanation for this sort of lavatory behavior, was there?  My friend Amy suggested maybe it was a guy thing?  Perhaps ballplayers pee with the door open?  Or could it be he was sleepwalking?  I speculated myself blue in the face, but I could never quite justify it.  I still can't.

Some house guests are messy, some argue, some will drink all your Grand Marnier; some will get wasted and act belligerent after a Mets/Red Sox game, while others will do the dishes and take you out to dinner.  And although it may seem highly unlikely, sometimes a house guest will take a whiz with the bathroom door wide open.

And that is why, Dear Reader, the couple from Utah will go down as the worst, most horrific house guests we have entertained to date.  Case closed.  (And good riddance.)

Comments

[Sissy]

I swear my room at Mommy's still smells like roses.

[the odd broad]

So heinous. I wonder if there are still rose petals under the bed?

[Amy]

I had completely forgotten about this story. Peeing with the door open is bad, but definitely a possibility with crotch grabbing, spitting baseball players. I don't think I appreciated just how disturbing the rose petal thing was at the time. Now I'm creeped out.

[the odd broad]

Can you just picture him peeing in my tiny little apartment on Ditmars Blvd?! So bizarre! This also brought back a host of yucky rose petal memories for Marianne.

[Amy]

Did he pee in the trash can? :)

[the odd broad]

Yes, and he also threw up outside of the student union. ;)

[Amy]

That may have been the worst! It stayed in that alcove for days. So funny! Was that the goldschnapps night?

[the odd broad]

I think it may have been...malibu rum? Did Jeff give me Malibu rum? Oh gross. And you made me eat bread, because you are a nice girl. xoxo