Each summer, my wife and children head up to Connecticut to spend a week with my in-laws. Believe me, I’d love to join them for a fun-filled week of swimming, cookouts, and cocktails—or as Jack Nicholson put it in As Good As It Gets, “good times, noodle salad.” Alas, I am stuck in our nation’s capital (a lovely swamp this time of year) helping to put out this fine publication.
Now I know what you’re thinking. A week without the wife and kids? No nagging, no hassling, no dishes to clean? I should be looking forward all year to this very moment—a return to bachelor bliss. And in many ways, I do. I’ll happily fill out my social calendar with lunch and dinner engagements, catch up with old friends, and imbibe without the worries of inebriation interfering with parental duties. (On one extremely rare occasion, my wife asked me to do some bedtime reading with my son. A few minutes later she found him reading quietly to himself while I sat next to him, fast asleep. As one of my colleagues would say, “Father of the Year.”)
In a perfect world, I’d use the week to get work done. I would catch up on reading and write up a storm since I spend most of the year complaining I don’t have enough time for either. But unsupervised, I might just as easily devour an entire pizza all by myself. (I’m reminded of the time, just after college, when my housemate Jose and I ordered the Kentucky Fried Chicken family meal deal—and split it between us.) I might lie on the couch and watch something awful, like the remake of I Spit On Your Grave. Worse, I might play a video game on the computer and not notice I’ve been sitting in the same position for four hours, only to look up and discover I’m surrounded by darkness except for the glow of the screen. Having a family keeps these impulses in check—there’s nothing more guilt-inducing than hearing your daughter say, “You’re playing Cilivization again?” I correct her mispronunciation of Civilization, but the embarrassment lingers.
Because I work in an office during the day, my wife oversees all domestic operations. Not only does she take care of the kids, cook, clean, and run the laundry, but she also tends the yard and schedules repairs and maintenance. (She was the first to notice the ceiling in our living room was on the verge of collapse. I, on the other hand, thought it simply needed a paint job.) She spends more time in the furnace area—what I think is technically known as “the scary part of the basement”—than I ever will. She changes the air filter and is able to notice, based on certain noises, if something is amiss with the hot-water heater or air-conditioning unit. I, on the other hand, will pretend not to hear those noises.
Except those noises seem to be amplified when I’m alone in the house. And have you ever noticed those bangs and creaks sound 10 times louder at night?
A couple of years ago, as my family departed for their week in New England, I was left to deal with an unpleasant domestic task. I was informed by my wife that a snap-trap had been set up behind our garbage can and to be on the lookout for a dead mouse. Sure enough, I came home and found one. But it wasn’t a clean snap. There were bloodstains on the tile floor. Then, as I made my approach, the mouse jolted. I jumped back and, with little time to waste, grabbed my nine-iron and proceeded to club the poor fella as if he were Joe Pesci at the end of Casino.
The next morning, while getting a haircut, I consulted my barber, Habib. “You must be merciful, my friend. You must do this to it!” he said, slamming his foot on the ground. “In Morocco, my father, he killed a rat as big as this” (he pointed to his forearm). “He trapped it in bathroom and killed it with chair. It screamed like baby.” He assured me I did the right thing, considering the circumstances. (Of course, Habib also knows how to slaughter his own lamb.)
By the middle of my bachelor week, I am eagerly awaiting the return of my family—and not just because the laundry is piling up. For me, the solitude is great for a day or two, but then I start to get anxious.
At church, there are petitions said for “the sick, the elderly, and shut-ins.” I’m pretty sure if I lived alone, I’d fall into that last category—like the old neighbor who stares out his window, terrified of the outside world. I’d be asking myself, “What was that noise? Is someone at the door? Did I really eat an entire pizza by myself again?”
