We Survived a Month with the World's Rudest House Guest

A few years ago we flew to visit friends in Canada, taking with us our two older granddaughters, who were in their teens at the time. A German girl, Olga, (not her real name) was visiting these friends at the same time, as they own a "hospitality house"and welcome visitors from all over the world. She was a paying guest.

As we drove the girls around to see the sights, primarily the world's largest mall, Olga accompanied us. We treated her the same as our girls, and we all got along famously.

When we all returned home, Olga emailed us frequently, confirming our previous opinion that she was a very nice girl. When she graduated from high school, she was undecided what career choice to make. She shared that it often took two years in Germany to get into a college.

My husband and I talked about the situation and decided to invite Olga to come to America and stay with us and attend the local junior college, as almost anyone could enroll there. She seemed to be an intelligent girl, spoke excellent English, and we had no doubt she would be admitted. My husband had always wanted to host a foreign exchange student, and this appeared to be an opportunity to do it our own way.

When I emailed her and extended the invitation, she seemed to be very excited about it. The only problem would be whether or not the credits she earned at our local two-year college would transfer to a German college, as she wanted to complete her education in Germany. I obtained from the local college all the needed information and mailed it to her.

After batting the subject back and forth for a few weeks, we learned, to our mutual disappointment, that the credits would not be transferable. So she decided to take advantage of her "down time" while waiting to enter college, and travel, as that seems to be her first love. Her mother was willing to supplement Olga's savings to enable her to travel.

Soon Olga emailed that she would like to visit America, and specifically us. Of course, knowing her as we thought we did, we invited her to visit us for whatever length of time she desired. After all, we had once welcomed her to stay with us for two years.

So Olga started planning her trip. She would stay for a month. Then she asked if her brother, Karl (not his real name), could come as well. Of course we were happy to have him. Her next surprise was that Karl was a vegetarian. Having cooked for over 40 years for a man who could happily exist for centuries without ever seeing a vegetable, I started to fret. How in the world does one cook for a vegetarian, especially when the rest of the family is somewhat carnivorous? But I would do my best.

When we met the plane that had brought 19-year-old Olga and 21-year-old Karl to America, we were happy to see them. Karl was a very polite young man who, unfortunately, spoke little understandable English.

Three hours later when we arrived home, our guests were surprised to see that our house was rather large. Olga asked if everyone in America lived in such a large house. We replied that many live in much larger ones, and many live in smaller ones, as we had for 35 years. She was captivated by our garbage disposal and trash compactor, which she later declared were "unnecessary and extravagant." That was the first clue as to what we should expect in the next month.

I soon found myself in the role of unpaid cook, dishwasher, maid, and chauffeur, unassisted except when my husband was at home. Our two guests spent all their time together, when we weren't showing them around, speaking in German and living it up. Olga made herself at home, using anything she desired without asking first. In most cases that wouldn't bother me, but when I saw she had taken outside a radio that had great sentimental value to me, it made me cringe.

One night Karl did offer to prepare our dinner. He was disappointed to find that, since we are teetotalers, we had no wine in the house to use in the dish he planned to prepare, and the cooking wine we bought for him at the grocery store fell far below his expectations. But his pasta meal was good, edible anyway, and I did appreciate his willingness to help.

During the days we spent at home, Olga sat and read my writing books, and either she or Karl was on our computer all day and till late every night, surfing the net. We seldom had a chance to even check our email, and since the computer was in our bedroom, we had to virtually run her out of our room in order to go to bed at night.

When, after a week, I asked them to strip their beds so I could launder the sheets, she refused to do so, saying it was too soon to wash them. I decided I would not offer again, but after another week she voluntarily gave me permission to wash her sheets. It seemed strange to me that she didn't offer to launder them herself, since our kids had been doing laundry, cooking, etc. since they were very young and had thought nothing of it.

We put over 3000 miles on our van during the month Olga was with us. Karl could only stay for two weeks, but he soon found he wasn't fond of the long drives required to get anywhere. He said that in Europe things were so much closer together. So we backed off on the traveling till after he had left.

Since Olga was a big Elvis fan, she had always wanted to go to Memphis to Graceland. After Karl had left, my husband took a Friday off work and we left for the long drive to Memphis, arriving there after dark. It took three days to make the round trip, and it was, for my husband and me, something of a nightmare, but Olga seemed to enjoy herself in spite of our obvious discomfort.

The thing that impressed me most about Olga, unfavorably, I might add, was her extreme rudeness. When we went to the table to eat a meal, she would sniff the food, then go to my spice rack, start opening spice jars and sniffing them, and season the food to suit herself. Never once did she compliment anything I cooked or thank me for the effort.

She wanted to learn to decorate cakes, so I spent a day teaching her all I could. She messed up the table and the area around it, and expressed a great deal of irritation when I told her that part of learning to decorate cakes is learning to clean up your mess. She was, however, a quick learner as far as technique was concerned, and did as well as any student I had ever had. When I complimented her on her skill, she said, "Well, you didn't teach me!" Since she had never attempted it before, I wondered.............

When she realized that I no longer worked at a paying job, and for a good many of my married years had stayed at home (raising my kids, caring for my aged in-laws, and running a home-based business), she informed me, "You'd have nothing if it wasn't for your husband."

I found it strange that of all the insults she hurled at me, she never did so in the presence of my husband. He was gone most of the day through the week, so it was easy for her to get all her digs in without his hearing them. She seemed to treat him with respect, other than taking advantage of him financially. I never figured out what had happened to change her attitude toward me once she arrived at our house. Since I have always tried to keep the peace and I hate friction and arguments, I mostly just bit my tongue and tried to ignore her remarks. The price I paid for that was developing stress ulcers, from which I have only recently recovered to some extent.

Olga loved grapes and apparently had little access to them in Germany. Every day she asked my husband to bring grapes home from the store, as he usually stopped by after work to pick up anything we needed. At the time, grapes were $5 a pound, and contrary to what she seemed to believe, we are not wealthy. She would take the grapes, all of them, out on the deck, where she ate them all. I never saw her offer any to her brother or leave any for my husband or me. One day I opened the trash compactor to see most of the grapes my husband had brought home the day before lying untouched on top of the contents. I washed them up and put them back in the refrigerator. I tasted one and it was rather sour. The next day, with those still in the refrigerator, she asked my husband to bring more. I suppose she thought our one local grocery store got in fresh grapes daily and the next batch might be sweeter. Not so.

One day I drove Olga about 60 miles to visit a historical area in a neighboring state. The small town had numerous antique shops and other sites that we consider historical. Her comment was, "You pooah ignowant Amewicans don't know what old is. We have buildings over a thousand years old in Europe." I just couldn't resist telling her that in America, when buildings get old and worn out, we tear them down and build better ones.

When we entered a small candle shop, the owner, a middle-aged woman, was on the phone talking to a family member, and was obviously upset. She soon got off the phone, and as people in our area tend to do, we started visiting. She told me about the physical problem one of her relatives was experiencing, and having been through a lot of the same family responsibilities she was dealing with, I commiserated with her for a few minutes. Soon I saw Olga pacing impatiently, so I asked her if she was ready to go, which of course she was.

Next we visited a store across the street which sold souvenirs and other items. A boy of about 10, apparently the owner's son, was assisting customers, including me. I bought a small item and as I paid for it, I expressed to the owner my appreciation for his polite and helpful son. As we left the store, Olga observed, "Well, at least you didn't tell him your life history."

Back across the street was a Christmas store which carried many German ornaments and decorations. Olga was so excited to see things from home, and found it hard to understand why I didn't share her enthusiasm. By that time I was so angry I could hardly be civil to her, much less rave about German Christmas ornaments.

By the time Olga's month was up, she had decided she would go home and attend college or some kind of training school, and eventually she would move to Canada, buy a big house, and open a bed-and-breakfast establishment. Since that time she seems to be working in that direction. I wouldn't be surprised to see her dreams realized one day.

Meanwhile, I thank God every day that she was unable to transfer credits from our local college to a German college. I'm afraid if she had stayed with us for two years, I might have lost my patience with her. Or strangled her. We still email and she has occasionally hinted broadly for another invitation to visit us. That won't be happening in my lifetime.

Occasionally, my husband still brings up the subject of our keeping a foreign exchange student. I keep reminding him of how we almost did that, got a sample of it, and to put it bluntly, if he wants to host a foreign exchange student, he'd better be looking for a new wife. I'm sure there are many wonderful foreign exchange students, but frankly, I'm not willing to take the risk of getting stuck with another Olga.