ASoleciSticlegion

A man's home is his castle (if he's single)

My adult niece did her best to talk me out of it.

After recently finding myself single in mid-life, she'd come up from New York to help me furnish a new home. She understood there are things a man alone would not think to buy, like, oh, pans.

"Are you sure I'll need them?" I asked.

She assured me.

Then she took me to a furniture store for the centerpiece of the home: the main place to sit in the living room. She picked out a tasteful, brown corduroy couch. While there, I kept eyeballing alternatives with buttons and levers, but unlike her uncle, she has social graces. A grown-up room, she said, should reflect a certain maturity.

So we bought this nice couch. But before delivery, after she'd gone back to New York, I had a change of heart. I searched the Web for what I'd always wanted and e-mailed her a link.

This is the part she tried to talk me out of.

"Please," she said. "Don't do it." She said she was begging me.

But I did do it, and the furniture movers were soon assembling the components. When they were done, I stood back and beheld. I had achieved the decor-goal men have long dreamt of, but aren't allowed to have.

In my past married life, the closest I came to it was a recliner chair off to the side of the TV room.

Today, though, it's just me.

So I went big.

The centerpiece of my adult living room is now an enormous L-shaped La-Z-boy sectional with multiple mechanics: backs that go down, leg lifts that come up, and a light-tan velor-like texture.

I texted my niece a photo. I thought it would convince her I was right after all. If I recall correctly, she texted back along the lines of, "Why, Mark? Why?"

Because there was no one to say no, that's why.

She was also displeased about my other adult-room decision. I have long felt dining rooms are pointless. In many homes, they are used a few times a year for formal, stuffy meals. Most dining rooms are as warm as an antiques museum. They consist of a wooden table and chairs surrounded by credenzas--at least I think that's the word for expensive cabinets whose only purpose is to display dishes that are standing up sideways. Women seem to like it this way. Now, I had a chance to rebel.

But what touch would change that? I sought decor advice from someone I felt would be an expert. I called a caucus with my college-age son, who is a member of a fraternity, and understands casual gatherings. He shrugged as if it were obvious and gave me his counsel.

The result: I now have a dining room that, instead of credenzas, has a flat-screen on the wall.

As a result, it is used almost daily. When my boys are there, we eat dinner watching the "Top-10 Plays of the Day" on ESPN, and it is good.

There is a secret truth about married men. There is an assumption that we are the head of household, but in fact, especially with decor, we have, at most, 49 percent of the vote. I once saw Bill Cosby onstage, and he asked if any men really thought they ran their house. One guy raised his hand. Cosby said, "Oh really? Who picked the wallpaper for the bathroom?"

I now have the freedom to do those things.

And yet.

I am finding that for the first time in decades, I have to run a house on my own, so I also have to be pragmatic.

It is my theory that there are many things about keeping house that women hold secret from men to control us. I'm now discovering them.

For example, there are these things called dryer sheets. They make laundry come out fresher. I also use them for a shortcut. If you put wet towels directly in the dryer with a few of those sheets, you usually don't have to wash them.

Along these same lines, there is a product called Febreze. If you spray that on almost anything – rugs, couches, musty clothes – they seem clean, and you don't have to call a company like Stanley Steemer.

I discovered a third secret that women keep from men, this one about bathrooms. There are these brushes. My kids now call them potty brushes. I realize that over the years, I'd seen them in the bathroom corners, but never knew what they were and never asked. Men learn to never ask about a lot of things.

I also found these tablets you drop in the basin and they turn the water blue, which makes it seem clean. Those were a secret too.

Along the same lines, I recently learned that if you put a box of baking soda in the refrigerator, it absorbs aromas, and makes the fridge seem clean. To those who want to be efficient, I strongly recommend this standard of “seeming clean.” It's far more efficient goal than “being” clean.

Though if you do want something to “be” clean, I recommend another product also kept secret from me until now. They are called “Clorox Wipes.” Instead of a bottle of Fantastik in one hand and paper towels in another, someone combined them in a lab. Thus, Clorox Wipes.

Finally, I have heard rumors there is something out there called fabric softener, which I don't fully understand yet, but I plan to look into it.

I will do so first in front of the dining room flat-screen, and then upon retiring to the La-Z-Boy sectional.

Please do not tell my niece.

--Mark Patinkin


..I found this so humorous I decided to post it here verbatim.
Enjoy.