I took my daughter over to a friend\u2019s house the other day for a \u201cplay day.\u201d We can\u2019t say \u201cplaydate\u201d in our house. Bridget had decided that the proper term is \u201cplay day\u201d and doesn\u2019t like when someone says \u201cplaydate.\u201d That\u2019s fine with me because I think the term is overused.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not the point. She didn\u2019t just get to have a good time with a classmate that day. I came down with a bad case of basement envy.
\nWe can\u2019t use our basement for much more than a laundry room or storage space. There is a small area for Bridget to play, but the place isn\u2019t insulated or heated so things are pretty cold this time of year.<\/p>\n
We bought the house knowing that some leaky spots in the walls would prevent us from having a real finished basement. I could deal with that 10 years ago, but things have changed.<\/p>\n
My free time is much more valuable. Plus, I have to share the house with two females. I need a place to escape.<\/p>\n
Sure, they are generally asleep whenever I do my serious sports-watching or loafing. But I can\u2019t yell at the TV when I\u2019m in the living room. I\u2019ll wake someone up.<\/p>\n
And Lord knows a guy needs a place where he can yell at the officials and players, especially when the games are most-likely previously recorded.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t believe how well I have trained myself to celebrate or protest without making a sound. I really should get some sort of award for that.<\/p>\n
The basement I visited Saturday had the kind of privacy I crave. And it had a pool table, foosball and an arcade-style basketball shooting game.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m stunned I ever left the place. The family is pretty lucky they didn\u2019t find me trying to break into the place late that night.<\/p>\n
I really don\u2019t know how I have lasted this long without games like those. Growing up, we had an air hockey table. In college, my fraternity house had a pool table and a place to play ping pong, although we mostly used that for beer pong.<\/p>\n
Guys need games in the basement. Video games, a cool computer and TiVo can only fill so much of the void.<\/p>\n
There is some hope. I dream of creating areas to make everyone happy. Bridget can have a place to play. Maria can have a place for her stamping and other craft activities.<\/p>\n
And I can have a place to drink beer, sit in a chair and yell at the TV.<\/p>\n
But it won\u2019t be easy. We will have to use some sort of sealer to contain the leaks in the walls. And we\u2019ll have to get some sort of flooring and make arrangements to make the temperature more comfortable.<\/p>\n
That seems like a whole lot of work to make a place to relax. I feel conflicted. I need a place to throw darts without worrying about damaging the walls, but I\u2019m too lazy to do the work and too cheap to pay someone else.<\/p>\n
Maybe I can ask the friends we visited Saturday to adopt me. I promise not to yell too loud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I took my daughter over to a friend\u2019s house the other day for a \u201cplay day.\u201d We can\u2019t say \u201cplaydate\u201d in our house. Bridget had decided that the proper term is \u201cplay day\u201d and doesn\u2019t like when someone says \u201cplaydate.\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-man-cave","wpcat-3-id","wpcat-36-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}