When R. and I lived in a townhouse on South 1st Ave., in Portland, we Airbnb’d the basement. It was a decent sized room with its own full bathroom and a minifridge. It even had a private entrance through the back gate. Previously, the space had been filled by R.’s twin brother, C., who was saving up to move into his own place. Once it became clear that I wasn’t going anywhere, C. promptly moved out. We filled his room with the minimal furniture I brought with me (a couch, a bed…end of list) and set out to make a little extra cash.
The room was rather dark, but we advertised it as a great place to drop your bags and explore the Rose City—not a five-star hotel with bougie accommodations. This honesty worked to some extent. The listing ensured people knew what they were getting (a cheap room, dogs in the house, a coffeemaker in the bathroom), but that didn’t stop a lot of them (so many of them!) from being the worst. For every enjoyable experience, we had at least one to two absolute psychopaths.
There was the couple that found shop rags in our garage and used them as toilet paper, thus clogging the pipes to the point that the backup caused a minor flood. R. and I were celebrating our one-year anniversary at a hotel on the Oregon coast, so we had to call C., who was closer to the chaos than we were, to assess and deal with the problem. He was, in a word, thrilled.
Before that debacle we had the woman and her daughter who spoke very little English and thought that they had purchased a stay at a bed-and-breakfast, which meant that when we didn’t provide breakfast, they proceeded to help themselves to our kitchen to prepare their own. Then there was the guy who spent hours talking to us in our kitchen, ate a bunch of nuts from the jars we kept on the counter when we weren’t around, and then left us a review that complained about fingerprint smudges on our refrigerator. To be clear, we explicitly said that the Airbnb experience did not extend to the rest of the home—especially not without permission.
I could give you a million other examples, but lest I bore you with the horrors of letting strangers into your home, I’ll move on to the story at hand. One of the wonderful couples we welcomed were a guy and his girlfriend. There was nothing particularly memorable about these two people. They were kind, respectful and friendly. And as you’ve probably picked up on at this point, no news is good news when it comes to Airbnb guests.
Except that they became pretty memorable when on the second day of their stay, the gentleman came upstairs to tell us that his girlfriend had had an accident. She recently changed her medication, and as a result, she literally shit the bed. He was extremely apologetic and asking if they could access the washer to clean the sheets.
R. was a little annoyed. In his defense, it was a lot of laundry we weren’t expecting and a super gross situation. He also tended to bear the brunt of our guests’ issues, so this was a bit of a proverbial straw. I’m telling you this because I want you to understand that R. is not a monster. His initial reaction did not prevent him from jumping into action, finding fresh sheets to replace the soiled ones.
All I could feel for this woman, though, was extreme compassion. When she came up carrying some of the dirty laundry, she couldn’t even look at us. She felt so ashamed. The next day, she came up to apologize again and again and say how mortified she was. I told her not to be. Shit happens! No grown adult in their right mind sets out to poop on someone else’s linens. It’s a nightmare scenario for us all. I didn’t want her to think we were judging her because we absolutely weren’t. This wasn’t her fault nor was it something she could control. The rest of their stay was seamless. We parted ways on great terms.
Last week, this situation popped into my head unexpectedly. Valentine’s Day was upon us, and I saw a million different perspectives about what this holiday means to us. From
’s meditation on the sadness she felt from being without a partner for the first time in many years to ’s examination of how annoying this holiday can be for mothers who end up doing a lot of extra invisible labor.I saw other stories, too. A polyamorous woman who spent the holiday alone because her husband is in jail for a crime he didn’t commit and the boyfriend and the couple she’s with lives very far away. A researcher and writer who shared what Valentine’s Day, in all its sparkly heart glory, teaches our children about gender differences.
I was reading all of these different accounts, but I was also thinking about the boyfriend who so loved his girlfriend, even after she had explosive diarrhea in a bed they were sharing, that he spared her the embarrassment of having to explain what happened. That is love, my friends. And you can bet if I was that woman, I would most definitely make my husband go up to the homeowners whose bed I just desecrated and advocate on my behalf.
He would do that, too. If the situation were reversed, I would do the same. Because like it or not, dear readers, truly loving someone means loving their shit, too. It means having affection for them, even on the worst, most mortifying day of their lives. Are you with someone like that? Are you that person for your person?
It’s something worth considering, as I think most people want someone who can appreciate that we aren’t going to be pretty and perfect every second of every day. Sometimes, we’re going to be horrifying messes, and that needs to be OK, too. My wish is that we all end up with someone who would share a shit love story with us, the kind of person who will stand by our side when the shit hits the sheets and not think less of us for being human.
I mean, I’m still not about to go to the bathroom in front of R. like a feral heathen for whom romance has endured a slow and painful death. Let’s not get crazy. We’re both still from the Midwest. But it really is nice to know that I can stop pretending to be a person who doesn’t poop. Everyone does it, after all. Even princesses.
With pleasure,
Yes, Misstrix
Oh my gosh, I feel for this woman so deeply. But I'm happy that she had such a wonderful partner, and I agree...I hope for all of us that we have partners who would stand by our sides in this situation. It could definitely be a great screening question when you're getting to know a potential partner!