Of all the places I’ve ever visited – Shanghai, Monte Carlo, Cleveland (all lies), of all the five star hotels I’ve ever stayed in (none), of all the times I’ve proposed to a girl while steering a gondola down a canal in Venice (two), I’ve still never been anywhere quite as comfortable as home. And I’m not talking about the 10×12 shoebox of a smelly apartment I call “home.” I mean the home where your parents live, the home where you don’t pay rent, the home where there is more than one closet, the home that’s a house – because anyone that’s ever said “Home is where the heart is” clearly never had a whole room set aside just for eating.

This past weekend I went to my parents’ house on Long Island. Because I’m poor. And there’s meat there. Which brings me to the first reason I love visiting them:

1. Food: They have it. I don’t. Normally, going on vacation requires a food budget. The only thing I spend on food at my parents’ house is energy, opening and closing the refrigerator and chewing. Or, lacking energy, I call the best pizza delivery in the world:

Me (yelling from my bed): Mooooommmm, I waaaant pizza!
Mom: Sure, honey. Thin crust or regular?

2. Laundry: I’ve been paying the not-stereotypically-just-plain-old-Korean guy 85 cents a pound to wash my clothes for six years. He hates me, mostly because I request that he air dries my lucky underwear. And, I think he’s been stealing my socks. At home I pay my not-stereotypically-just-plain-old-white mom nothing, and she doesn’t steal.

3. Air conditioning: It’s cool.

4. Backyard: Even at the best hotels you only get a balcony, which is still nice because you can fart freely without offending your girlfriend or having to blame it on the dog. But having an actual backyard is even better. It’s like going to Brazil. Because it’s filled with space and grass, and you can play soccer back there, theoretically, if you felt like it, and you found the old ball in the basement, and the air pump, which even if you found it wouldn’t have the needle. Me, I didn’t feel like playing their fake football. I felt American, so I just lied in a chaise lounge, dreaming about the outlet mall while people barbequed around me.

Of course, this list excludes countless advantages of a trip home, like dishwashers, housekeepers, personal drivers and landscapers – all of which are actually just your mother. Proving once and for all that you can go home again. To my home. Your parents may suck.

- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame