Houseguests are always interesting.

I traveled to Wales not too long ago. For those of you who don’t already know the answer, let me ask you a Jay Leno-ish kind of question. Is Wales a country or is it part of England?

I don’t really know what it is.  Actually, they think it is a country.  It is actually part of the United Kingdom, but it’s not really England. So, Wales wants to be its own country.

Anyway, when we were in Wales we stayed with a couple of friends. Let me tell you something about houseguests and about being a houseguest.

My Grandmother used to say that houseguests were like fish — they tend to stink after three days. So you either need to cook the fish or kick the houseguests out after that.

If you do have a houseguest, though, you need to make them feel special. When we were staying with those friends in a beautiful castle in Wales, it really opened my eyes about the right way to treat a houseguest.

I mean, I am pretty good with houseguests, but these guys just went over and above the hosting call of duty. They picked us up from the airport. they took us out to dinner.

That is really important by the way. When you have a houseguest in from out of town, do you take them out to dinner or do you expect them to take you out to dinner?

When people come to visit you, it is really nice to take them out to dinner. Treat them to a good meal.

They made the trip cross-country to meet you. The least you can do is take them out to dinner.

Also, you need to remember some of the “little things” that equal a nice experience for your houseguests. Did you put nice clean towels in the bathroom (or did you leave out the towels that have been hanging in the bathroom for the past two weeks)?

Did you change the sheets on the bed? I have stayed at people’s houses and slept in beds in which I swear their dog slept the night before.

I have stayed at people’s houses where they have expected me to pay for all the meals when we went out to dinner. It’s like they think, “Well I am giving him a place to stay so the least he can do is treat me for dinner every night.” I even had one host actually say that out loud to me one time.

I would rather get a hotel room sometimes. I have stayed at people’s homes where the accommodations at any hotel would be much cleaner.

When you have a houseguest, you give them the royal treatment. You make sure you treat them well.

You pick them up from the airport or, if you can’t, you make arrangements for a cab. Make sure you treat them to dinner. Show them a good time.

Offer the keys to your car or take them out to do something they enjoy. Educate them a little bit about your town.  If you don’t want to do everything with them, give them a list of things they can do in your town.

Pick one of your favorite restaurants and take them there. Choose a restaurant they can’t go to in their hometown (and don’t pick a chain restaurant like an Applebees).

The bottom line is that you need to treat your houseguests really nicely, because traveling is hard. I traveled for about three weeks and, I have to tell you, I felt like royalty at each person’s home at which we stayed. That is how every houseguest should feel.

You are on a ten hour flight coming back from wherever you’ve been — from a secret location vacation. That’s what I like to call my vacations: secret location vacations. (We had a great time on ours by the way).

So we are nearly at the end of our ten hour flight back to Los Angeles, when the flight attendant becomes just really annoying. Here we are, watching our fourth movie and enjoying it. It was a really great movie called “My Sister’s Keeper,” and we’re getting close to the gut-wrenching end when the poor girl is dying of cancer.

Then, all of a sudden, the movie freezes on the screen as the flight attendant gets on the P.A. system to talk to us about . . . money. Yes, she wanted to announce that they were sending around a bag to collect money for UNICEF.

Now maybe if they had brought around a giant plastic pumpkin — or even one of those orange boxes like we used to use when I was a kid — then I might have given them my leftover change. To pass around a garbage bag, though, is just showing there there is no innovation.

It was also really annoying to have her go into this long speech about UNICEF when I just wanted to see the end of the movie. When the movie final did resume, the pilot gets on the speakers.

Who cares that we are almost there. Just land the plane. Then he gives us a guided tour of what is below us. As I am in a middle row, I can’t possibly see that we’re flying over Vegas.

Then the movie comes back on, except it is interrupted again by one of my favorite things in the world:the welcome to America video. It’s such a wonderful video. It teaches you how to make it through customs as if you are retarded.

Look, I’ve flown into England, Germany and lots of other countries, and nobody else plays a video about what to do when you get there. That’s part of the fun of going — not knowing what to do, what to claim and what to fill out.

The United States, however, has an entire patriotic video. Any of you who work for the government are probably cringing right now because I probably sound very anti-American.

The truth is that I am not anti-American at all. I just do not want to watch these videos . . . especially during a crucial part of the movie I’m trying to finish on the plane.

When they finally put the movie back on again, then the flight attendant comes over and says she wants to put my headphones away before we land in another 20 minutes. I looked at her and said, “No, you’ve already interrupted the move fourteen times.”

So if any of you work for the airlines, please help out and see what you can do about getting rid of those videos. Also, although I don’t mind giving money to causes, do we have to be asked while we’re on a plane?

We already give money everywhere we go. You are at the airport and a Hari Krishna hits you up before you hit the plane. You get off the plane, and some guy in a priest outfit is hitting you up for some type of Catholic school thing.

I mean everywhere you go, people are asking for money. Really, I’d like to see some ingenuity at least from the people asking me for the money. I’d like to see the first bum on the street with a credit card processing machining. That would really impress me. Instead of asking for change, they could tell you that they take PayPal, American Express, Visa and Master Card.

My feelings about airplanes would be different if the airlines offered better things on a plane. It would be different if when you boarded a plane, they asked if you were single and seated you with the other single people. I mean, how many times have you walked down the aisle of the plane toward your seat and thought, “Why aren’t I sitting next to THAT person?!”

You could change seats throughout the flights and get to socialize with lots of different people. They could designate a whole singles section in the back of the plane. It could be like a mini speed dating event in the back five rows.

They could have a section for each group. Singles could hang in the back few rows. Divorced people would sit in rows 3 through 7. Couples would hang out in a section together. There would be a section just for swingers. All all the screaming kids would be put in their own section.

Better yet, why not have an entirely separate plane just for kids. No adults, just the kids. Instead of flight attendants, there would be adult babysitters on the plane. They would walk around the plane serving three kinds of milk: breast, whole and skim. Can you imagine what those flight attendants would look like by the end of each trip? Green pea spit up on their shirts and all sorts of other craziness.

I actually think that singles should have their own plane . . . and even their own airline. On that airline, the cart would go around serving shots, cosmopolitans, martinis and Jaegermeister. Instead of peanuts, they would hand out condoms to each person.

There would be a special place for people to go to hook up and join the mile high club. If you think about it, this is a great idea and actually superior to other ways people meet and hook up.

Think if you were on a ten hour flight and ended up getting laid. Is that so crazy? People hook up all the time after two or three hours of talking to someone in a bar. Ten hours sitting and talking with someone on a plane is a long time to get to know someone. It’s like three dates worth of conversation smushed together into one trip.

On the singles airline, if you get laid on the flight you would earn triple miles. just think, three trips to Europe getting laid on each one and you’re executive platinum status. If you think executive platinum has benefits on American, on our airline you get your own waterbed in the back complete with a Hugh Hefner silk robe. Talk about priority seating. . .

This singles airline concept would definitely save the airline industry a lot better than collecting for UNICEF.