Man Caving

Last weekend I helped move some furniture for old pal and soon-to-be father Don Niccolo, and in the process noticed the space he is making available in his basement. Currently, this is a very unfinished basement--cement floor, rafters, brick walls--but it is his plan to make it eventually into a man cave.

Now, "man caves" have been around since the days of cavemen, the difference then being that the whole family lived in the cave, so for men to have their own special place they'd have to hang out on a rock outside. "Man rocks" had serious disadvantages, though, because of the likelihood of being mauled by a lion or stomped on by a mammoth (plus, no television hookup). Man caves today are usually basements or attics, and feature all that furniture that wives don't want messing up the decor of the rest of the house. They also are the location of the beer supply, and those neon beer signs that look so cool but are the first to go when you cohabitate.

Being an apartment dweller, I don't really have space for a man cave--I suppose you could argue my entire apartment is sort of a man cave--but I'm always up for helping set up the man cave of another. There's nothing a good deal of cleaning and fixing won't accomplish, and before you know it we'll be playing ping pong and playing Led Zeppelin for days on end.

Man cave? More like man palace.