Knock, Knock

Hosts are not maids, nor are they tour operators. They should be glad to make recommendations for places to visit and to eat, and even gather brochures. But "crack a guidebook before you arrive," says reader Ruth van Baak Griffioen of Williamsburg, who reports that of the 107 guests who visited her during her three years in the Netherlands, 104 were great.

She saw enough people coming and going to rack up a few pet peeves, though, including people who arrived without local currency or the proper tools to acquire some. Number one on her wish list: a guest who tells the host no later than on arrival when he or she plans to leave.

Seems reasonable: Even hotels ask for that.

While many readers complained about being mistaken for a hotel, Bill McCloskey stood out: His friend mistook his home for an RV park and grocery store.

McCloskey, of Bethesda, immediately opened his heart and driveway when an acquaintance he met through church contacts asked if his family could visit in their RV. He swallowed without comment when the guy hooked a fire-hose-size cord from the RV to McCloskey's electricity source. He watched while the family took food first by the loaf, then by the box, out of his house. Only when the guy's kids locked McCloskey's daughter out of the house was the RV family sent packing.

We didn't ask the etiquette expert about this one, but we think Baldrige would have approved.

· Don't overindulge. Donna Wiesner's guest mentioned on arrival that she'd be of no use around the house because she had a bad ankle.

Wiesner, of Alexandria, thought the guest might also be nearsighted, given how she'd sometimes walk in the opposite direction from an obvious destination.

She thought it a little odd when the woman's husband -- a friend of Wiesner's husband's -- had to grab her to keep her from falling down the stairs. But she does have that bad ankle, Wiesner thought.

The next morning, while both husbands were out fishing, Wiesner walked in to find the wife squatting on the floor in front of the liquor cabinet, a bottle upended in her mouth.

Every other bottle in the cabinet was just one shot shy of empty.

This takes us back to Baldrige's most basic advice: Host only those you know and love.

But given the problems, why get yourself entangled in the whole guest/host thing at all?

Because hosting, for all its potential pitfalls, is "one of the most loving, attractive things you can do for friends or family," says Baldrige. "It's a wonderful thing to do in this selfish world of ours."

And then, of course, there's the selfish perspective. Reciprocity, after all, is an assumed obligation of the guest/host relationship. You, the host, have earned an unspoken credit, good for one drop-by, while passing through.