Quote:
Originally Posted by zeek
My father, never an overtly religious man, used to go on business trips to Salt Lake City. He would come home telling stories extolling the virtues of Mormon "institutional" hospitality.
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They had a great choir also.
All kinds of great things can be done given the necessary resources. I doubt one of the Mormon families was ever called up during dinner time and asked to give hospitality that night. For us to give short notice hospitality meant canceling plans, immediate food shopping and preparation, laundering bedding, whole house cleaning and vacuuming, shuffling uncooperative kids (
and promising bribes), etc.
One time we were hit with short notice, and the kids were not cooperating. The visiting family was on their way from out of time, and there was no way to make things work. Eventually I had to go out and meet them at their car and apologetically inform them that it just wouldn't work out. I apologized up and down, and they seemed to willingly accept different accommodations, but afterwards they went back to their locality and bad-mouthed me and my family.
Perhaps "institutional" is not the best choice of words. A better choice of words might be: coerced, mandatory, taken for granted, unappreciated, etc.