When can you entertain me for a few days?

She wasn't really asking for a few days at the beach or viewing seaside attractions, as one would think, but she left a message on the phone, spoken in a warbly voice, that I heard with trepidation, "Can you entertain me in your home for a few days?" It was Jeff's elderly cousin from Missouri, whom he hadn't seen in 30 years.

Being selfish, and one who craves my personal space for myself, I was tempted to delete the whole message and hope it would disappear into the ether, but he would probably find out, for this cousin was filled with a preternatural persistence.

I am an only child who never wanted to be bothered with company, except for a couple of compatible friends who were, by the way, mostly children themselves. At least I know I am a happy loner and am willing to admit it publicly without a guilty conscience.

My mother, also an only child, would keep on inviting relatives to visit for two or three days, even though it always resulted in a big blow-up! She would notably invite her mother-in-law, the Queen Victoria-like Julia Bounds. The two, like a lot of mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationships, never got along, to put it mildly. Once, my mother came at Julia with a frying pan full of hot grease at our Dewey Beach cottage. My father threw my mother into the outside shower, hoping to put out this Stromboli volcano-like raging fire.

Another time, my mother attempted to show braggy slides of our trip to Europe in the 1960s, but Julia had cunningly donned rubber galoshes, even though it wasn't raining. During the slide show, she rubbed her ankles together the whole time, making squishing sounds that drowned out my mother's presentation, inviting a swift and stormy end to the evening.

My father innocently once brought home a girl who looked just like me and said he was planning to adopt her. She stood on one of the twin beds in my bedroom and declared that all that was mine would one day be hers! As I was already territorial, a big fight occurred, and I won, since I can be athletic when necessary! Needless to say, my father soon realized I didn't require a sister to play with.

To go back to the wannabe visitor who wished to be entertained, Jeff, being Jeff, didn't take my advice to avoid having a guest. I reminded him that no good deed goes unpunished, but he never learns, just like my father. At least, fearing that I might take after my mother in temperament, Jeff gave her the green light to visit (also a verb like "to entertain"), with the caveat that she rent a room at a nearby Georgetown hotel due to a plumbing problem in the upstairs bathroom adjacent to the so-called guest room, which is filled with 70 cartons of my shoes.

The first night, she wanted a seafood dinner, which Jeff offered to treat her to at a local restaurant. She ordered a basket of fried clams that gave her heartburn and remarked that they were full of sand! Her contribution to the bill was one dollar, which she slapped down on the table when the check arrived.

An expert on medical conditions, she relayed long discourses on every geriatric malady known to mankind. She came into my kitchen where I was attempting to heat soup for lunch, declaring, "How do you manage to cook in a kitchen so small?" You'll soon find out! She chose a rainy week to visit, but showed no interest in Jeff’s offers to drive her to see the local attractions. Plopping down on my little corner of my sofa, she set up headquarters, spreading out her voluminous family trees and photos. Afterward, she napped in the middle of the day, all lights out, blinds drawn, the TV off, having requested a comforter and hot tea. My cat Rusty wisely took refuge under my bed.

She complained that the blanket did not cover her feet, although she's a munchkin, maybe even shorter than I am myself. The afternoon she arrived, Jeff drove her to see Rehoboth, since the rain had not yet arrived. He thought she would want to see the ocean, but they had made it down the boardwalk only to Funland when she wanted to go back to the car, thereby wasting several quarters Jeff had put in the hungry meter.

As I write this, Jeff is trooping through wet grass and tombstones at an old graveyard in Maryland, probably an hour and a half away by car, looking for the burial sites of their Seemans ancestors. This was her chief reason for coming to visit and be entertained, if you can call a cemetery visit on a rainy day entertaining!

At least she presented Jeff with valuable tokens of his family heritage. A volume called "The Forest of Appoquinimink," a rare Delaware book that he treasures, and an ancient silver baby spoon from his Grandfather Seemans were two of the best gifts. My gift from her was the idea of this story for my column, one that many people who live here at the beach can probably relate to!

I, for one, am glad that I don't have a beach cottage anymore. My father traded our Rodney Street cottage in Dewey Beach for an extension to our Milton house, and paid a wily contractor $5,000 as part of the deal. This was in the mid-1960s, way before prices shot into the stratosphere. At least I don't have visitors there now, leaving piles of wet towels and sand in their wake, and requiring me to boil endless pots filled with ears of corn on the cob for them on the stove.

Yes, “to entertain" is a very wearying action verb. The best lesson one can learn is to be able to entertain yourself! I am currently taking time out to embroider a sampler that reads, "Visitors, like fish, begin to smell in three days." I will hang it where the altruistic Jeff can read it, but he'll never learn — just like my parents.