A Declaration to Our Obnoxious Visitors, by Rebecca Cohen

When, in the course of hosting houseguests, it become necessary for the hosts to evict said guests from their abode, and to assume once more the peace and privacy to which the laws of courtesy entitle them, a desire to prevent the situation from recurring requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the eviction.
We hold these principles of etiquette to be self-evident: that all people desire to be equally respected; that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights; that among these are sleep, privacy, and the pursuit of their own interests; that to secure these rights, humans are inculcated with basic manners, deriving their power from the mutual consent of society; and that whenever a houseguest becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the hosts to banish him from their residence.
Such has been the patient sufferance of my family; and such is now the necessity which constrains us to expunge my father’s college buddy and his children from our home. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a sympathetic listener for the truth of which I pledge a faith unsullied by lies, bias, or hyperbole.
They have refused to be silent at 1:00 AM, when all normal people are sound asleep.
They have forbidden us to remove their strange tofu products from our refrigerator, and have subjected us to meals made entirely from health food.
They have endeavored to make us as uncomfortable as possible by discussing their personal issues in public.
They have made unusual, uncomfortable, and disturbing fart jokes at the dinner table.
They have made us dependant on their whims alone for planning our daily schedule, and have required us to visit tourist traps such as the Space Needle on a regular basis.
They have plundered our drawers in search of diversion, disregarding our requests that they not paw through our personal items.
They have subjected us to their company at every waking hour, willfully ignoring our hints that they should entertain themselves.
A family whose character is thus marked by every act which may define boorishness is unfit to stay in the home of another family. Nor have we been wanting in attentions to their whims. We have tactfully reminded them of the tenets of civility, and we have appealed to their common sense and compassion to cease these invasive behaviors which interrupt our rest and peace of mind. They have been deaf to the voice of decency. We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which proclaims our eternal seperation!
We therefore the residents of this house do solemnly publish and declare, in the name of our sanity and well being, that we are, and of right ought to be, free of these visitors; that we are absolved from all allegiance with them, and that all social connection between us is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as independent and long-suffering hosts, we have full power to expel them from our home.
And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the authorization of Ms. Manners, we mutually pledge to each other our support, our allowances, and the honor of our family.