Your wife is having a few of her colleagues over for drinks…

Your wife is having a few of her colleagues over for drinks…

But that’s OK, because you have a man cave an office that you haven’t really broken in yet. Let them get drunk and boisterous out there. You can make your own fun. Right?

• Swordfishtrombones by Tom Waits is the first thing that goes on the turntable you keep meaning to use but don’t. Damn, that’s a solid album.
• You wonder, for the first time, why you didn’t think about going out. Because it’s a Wednesday. Because you’re tired. Because you work from home and don’t have a solid sense of where your outside clothes are any more.
• 200 words a day! Let’s get this thing done.
• The dogs, so happy to stay asleep at your feet all day, don’t take long to decide that the fun is happening on the other side of the door. Judases.
• Second album: Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen. Another solid choice. You congratulate yourself on your awesome taste in music.
• There is the POP of a cork in the distance. You look at your water bottle ruefully.
• Your brother texts: it’s snowing in the UK. Which makes sense because, you know, it’s still winter there. And it will continue to be winter right up to the two days of summer in mid-August. This is not news. He sends pictures. In case you’ve been away for so long that you don’t remember what snow looks like. “Brr, looks cold” you text back because that’s what you should text back. He seems happy. Because, brr, it is cold.
• Hey, does that XBOX on the shelf work? Yes! Yes it does!
• There is laughing. Shouting and cursing. But you’re about to beat your fastest lap, so who’s really having a good time? Exactly.
• Maybe a nap would help.
• Hey the dogs have come to check on you! They love you! Apparently, they quickly decide, you’re doing fine. They’re going back to the party. Don’t tell them about the napping, you silently implore your treacherous cute-bombs.
• Ah, the dark blissful release of sleep.
• You wake to the sounds of bottles hitting the bottom of trash cans, dishwashers being loaded, and The Great British Bake-Off on the TV. The sounds that suggest home has been restored. Time to go out there and bravely offer to help tidy up. But your chair is just so damn comfortable…