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Pique n' your interest

A winter of discontented visitors

For a while this winter I thought I was pretty popular.

Almost every weekend and throughout most weeks we had houseguests bunking down at our tiny basement apartment in Emerald.

We have to be pretty fun and exciting people, I thought, if people keep coming to share our cramped quarters with us.

As it turns out, our revolving door had nothing to do with how much fun I thought we were. It had everything to do with how much fun our resort is.

We've had relatives as old as 70, long lost high school friends and new found acquaintances just dropping by to hang out for a few days.

It's been fun - a lot of fun. It's also been enlightening.

Living in Whistler for the past 18 months, with more houseguests than I'd like to count or remember, I've since learned a thing or two about people who come to visit.

Guests can be broken down into a few basic categories which should be considered if you're inviting them to stay or, more often than not, if they're calling you up and telling you they're coming. Think about this before extending your next invitation.

1) There are guests who ski and guests who don't.

This first category is of supreme importance. If your guests do not ski some people, like my mother, believe there is an inherent obligation to entertain them off the mountain. As such, you run the very real risk of missing some memorable powder days walking in circles around the village for the umpteenth time.

For your own sanity I recommend letting your guests entertain themselves while you play on the mountain. It may seem callous and cruel, especially if the guests are visiting Whistler for no other reason than to spend time with you. But after all, we came to Whistler to ski so ski we must. Of course, if it's raining to the Roundhouse you can hang out with them to your heart's content, knowing that you're not missing anything good above.

With these guests your options are fairly cut and dry. You run into a big grey area with guests who fall into the next category.

2) Guests who say they can ski and are telling the truth and those who say they can ski but are in fact telling you a boldface lie.

So there you all are riding up the chairlift excited to go skiing or riding with some old friends, ready to take them all over the mountain to "your" secret spots when they promptly fall into a heap as they're getting off the chairlift.

No worries. They haven't been up any mountains (or hills if they're from Ontario) for a while. It's going to take them a few runs to settle back into things.

You soon realize however that your day is going to be spent waiting and resting, stopping for long lunches, resting, and did I mention waiting.

Forget Spanky's today. These guys are having trouble at Olympic.

And this is the whole point. If they had told you right off the bat that you would be spending your day on green runs, waiting and resting, you could have prepared yourself for it. Much like you do when your next category of guest comes to visit - the first timers.

3) Those who are willing to learn and don't yell at your advice and those who get angry at you for saying "bend your knees a little more," complaining all the while about their aching muscles, their tired legs and their fogged up goggles.

Things can get really ugly really fast with beginners. Nerves get a little frazzled and tempers run a little high on days like these. Excitement and anticipation on the gondola ride up soon turn to nastiness and bitterness when they realize that while snowboarding has a steep learning curve, it takes at least a couple of days to link turns well. Not to mention, it hurts like hell at the beginning.

But after yells, frustration and sometimes a few tears on the mountain, things usually return to normal on the ride back down - and that's usually a ride down on the gondola not on the snow. This leads me on to my next category of guest.

4) Those who are here to drink their faces off at apres and beyond and those who are here to relax, kick back and be very low maintenance.

It's somewhat sad to say that the only time I'm at Moe Joe's or the Savage Beagle or Garf's is when friends are in town for a visit. In retrospect, maybe that's not all that sad to say at all.

The thing is, when people come to visit you inevitably drink and eat more than you would ever do normally. It's like you're on vacation too, except, wait a minute, you have to get up every morning and go to work instead of either sleeping off a hangover or chasing it away with a mid-morning shot in your hot chocolate at the Crystal Hut. Let's face it, those are two prospects infinitely more appealing than going to work.

It's hard work entertaining every night, especially when you're in your late 20s and your body just can't do what it used to without severe repercussions. It's also hard on your wallet. So it turns out that since you've been vacationing along with your guests, you've spent all the money in your holiday fund and are now flat broke, with nothing but a headache and a hazy recollection of the shooter wheel at Garf's to show for it.

It's fun but sad all at the same time.

To sum up, each houseguest is unique. Some are so much fun you never want them to leave and you miss them when they go. Others take a little more work.

At the height of the winter season this year, when I was washing our one extra sheet while saying goodbye to one set of guests then drying the same sheet while saying hello to another, I'd had enough of people coming to visit.

All I wanted to do was to come home after a long day at the office and sit and stare at my walls.

We had one weekend like that recently, and as it turns out, we were bored.

It would seem that the only thing worse than having a steady stream of guests, week in and week out, is having none at all!