The New Clubhouse

Note: This originally appeared on DadCentric on November 14, 2005.

When you first buy a house, you and your wife have plenty of room. You might have an office, a guest bedroom, and, if you're really lucky, a room of your own. This is the place where you keep all your tacky bachelor furniture (your wife's words, not yours), a small television set, a PlayStation, and your sports memorabilia. Add a kid to the mix, and now you have an office/guest bedroom. Add another kid, and the contents of your room are sitting by the curb, awaiting the Salvation Army truck.

Unless you have a garage.

Here in Suburbia (or at least in my little corner), guys have begun setting up shop in their garages. Everyone in my neighborhood has at least a television and a refrigerator full of beer in their garage. True, cars are still parked in most of the garages, but they can easily be moved for an impromptu poker game or Monday Night Football. Some guys have gone the extra mile and put pool tables and foosball tables in their garages. Legend has it that in a nearby subdivision, there is a garage that contains a bar, a high-definition television, a satellite receiver, and a poker table. It is a stripper pole away from being a really nice underground gentlemen's club.

When we were boys, we had clubhouses. Now we have garages.

I bet you're wondering how I've tricked out my garage. Sadly, my wife and I are both packrats. Our garage contains mountains of boxes full of stuff we couldn't live without that has just been sitting there for two years now. No TV. No fridge. And no cars, either.

But one day...