In an annual summer tradition that has come to be known as Frank’s Freedom Week and Awesome Bachelor Bash, my wife and children are spending several days at her parents’ cottage.

I’ll meet up with them this weekend, but in the meantime I have the house to myself.

To celebrate my newfound freedom, I am currently writing this sentence with the full knowledge that a jar of mayonnaise is sitting open on the kitchen counter and is at great risk of spoiling.

We part-time bachelors refer to this sort of behavior as “living on the edge,” because spoiled mayonnaise can cause food poisoning, a condition almost as painful as the look our wives would shoot us if they learned we’d left sandwich condiments unrefrigerated for extended periods of time.

Staying home alone is not all fun, games and spoiling food, though.

As the sole occupant, I am responsible for holding down the fort, including but not limited to ensuring the fort is standing in roughly the same condition as it was when my wife and children last laid eyes upon it.

For example, our bungalow was not in flames and the basement was not flooded.
The grass did not reach my knees.

Also – and this is perhaps the most important point of all – I have to remind myself to put on pants before answering the door, because as any part-time bachelor worth his salt knows, wearing pants indoors is for wussies.

As proof, I point you to the film Risky Business, in which a younger and less manic Tom Cruise dances around the living room of his parents’ home in boxer shorts and white socks as Bob Seger plays loudly on the stereo.

Women either laughed at this ridiculous scene or cooed at the prospect of one day meeting and marrying Tom Cruise, because beneath that wild and carefree exterior was obviously an extremely stable and normal person who would soon be earning more than enough to purchase his own pants.

My only thought was, “I want to be that guy some day.”

The guy without pants.

Now, having reached adulthood, opportunities to roam free in my boxers are few and far between, and can present legal difficulties if the front curtains are accidentally left open.

“Frank’s on his own again,” the neighbours will whisper from the street. “I just saw him cross his living room in those ratty old things that his wife would never let him wear, at least not without proper trousers. Think of the children.”

Even the cat and dog are at the cottage, and when I return home from work the house is eerily silent, as though I were the last person on Earth.

This can lead to feelings of loneliness and despair, unless there is a box of extra-stinky smoked kippers in the refrigerator and enough clean underwear to see me through the week without ever having to use the washing machine.

If only I can remember to keep the curtains closed.


(The above column was generously sponsored by the good people at Heart Stoppers Double Deep Fried Corn Dogs and Lazee Lager, the official lager of part-time bachelors. Motto: our beer doesn’t smell any worse than smoked kippers.)