We’re prepping the apartment for our guests who will be staying at our apartment while we are in France. The nice thing about having guests while you are away is that you are forced to have a reason to clean your apartment and make it tidy. The bad thing about having guests while you are away is that you are forced to have a reason to clean your apartment and make it tidy. Sometimes, you really just want to pack and get the heck out and not clean every speck of dust and make sure the bath tub is shiny before you leave.

AirBnB insures your apartment for about a million dollars when you have a guest staying over, but I still get a little worried before every guest comes, even if it’s not super rational, because I think of the things that don’t necessarily cost a lot of money but have a lot of sentimental value. These are things that if they were to break, I’d get really upset. The things I think about are things like my Disney World It’s a Small World mug. It probably cost no more than ten bucks, but I get really antsy when I think of someone dropping it. I think about the German and Austrian gingerbread-like houses we bought in Europe during the last two Thanksgivings, and I think of them shattering to pieces.

I still put away the mug into my underwear drawer before the guests come. It’s slightly paranoid, but I do it anyway. I’ll continue to do this.