Houseguests: the Final Installment

Well, as of yesterday, our houseguests are finally gone. And it wasn't the best of partings. :-(

Adam beat me back home by five days, since I went to Pennsylvania to be a bridesmaid for one of my best college friends (and it was a beautiful wedding! Pictures to follow!). When I talked to Adam on the phone throughout the week, he informed me that our guests were treating him particularly coldly. They were barely talking to him or even acknowledging that he was there. I thought maybe they felt awkward because I wasn't there (they were more my friends, music department and all), so I decided to wait till I got home to worry about it.

And then I got home.

And then I REALLY worried about it.

In my absence, and in the name of "cleaning", they had: rearranged furniture and cabinets, broken dishes, taken steering wheel covers and decorative features off our car, torn a hole in our nice new couch, filled the linen closet with dirty towels, locked our kitties in the bathroom repeatedly for no good reason, and gave us a record electric bill, among other things. And and AND! They had taken anything they perceived as "junk" from the living areas and just chucked it into our bedroom, so I got to walk into a DISASTER room with a bed when I got home.

In spite of all this, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they had merely been trying to clean our house as a favor, albeit in a foolhardy way, so I let it be.

But.

They were extremely cold to me, as well. Adam and I would walk in the house after work, and they wouldn't even say "hi" to us. They avoided conversation with us, and would huddle somewhere and whisper amongst themselves.

So, seeing that our friendship was rapidly disintegrating and that they were grossly overstepping houseguest boundaries, I finally broke the news to them that they needed to go. They left yesterday with a terse, "Thanks for letting us stay." No hugs. No smiles. No indication that we had a friendship of several years under our belts.

I'm really sad and perplexed. Sad because in saving them from the gutter, I destroyed our friendship. Perplexed, because there is no reason why that should have happened. But, I also feel a calm. I did the right thing by helping out friends in need, and I know that God is watching.

But losing my friends for no reason? That just sucks.