I can do what with the guest bedroom?

           So, one day I was sitting on the bed watching TV and my beautiful wife walks in, glances at the overflowing bookshelf on her side of the bedroom and gets a thoughtful/perplexed look on her face.  What’s important to know is that the bookcase in question was definitely NOT supposed to be overflowing with books.

           When we moved into our new home after our fire, I’d agreed to finally give my wife the “big girl bedroom” that she’d wanted for years.  For the last ten, our master bedroom had been a hot mess of wall-to-wall Late 20th Century Nerd style.   I can admit now that it wasn’t pretty.  Remember Mel Gibson’s apartment from Conspiracy Theory?  Well, it was kinda like that on a hardcore nerd tip but without Mel’s roaches.  And God love her, she never complained once.

           Now, in our new home, WW II fighter plane models no longer hang from the ceiling and not a single Frazetta print is to be found.  And those Lord of the Rings replica swords that really tied the room together? Gone. We had settled on a non-cluttered/minimalist Japanese/Asian style and while we’re no HGTV interior decorators, I think we pulled it off.

           So, “non-cluttered” is the key term here.  “Why then,” my wife wondered aloud, “is my bookcase jam-packed” with H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Hellboy, DC Archive editions, and various other comic trade paperbacks and such?  She actually just said “all these books” but I wanted to drop some names.

           “Well, Dear” I explained, “as you are aware, we have insurance money specifically ear-marked for the replacement of the books we lost in the fire.”  I reminded her that I have exactly two years from the date of the fire to replace those books and submit the receipts for reimbursement.  No time like the present and all.

           Let’s just say that me and Amazon.com have become realllllly well acquainted in the last six months.  Whoever thought up the Amazon Prime program ($75 a year for free two day shipping on most items)…I say “well done Sir!”  And my weekly lunch hour trips to my local library’s used book store were paying off as well.

           I could tell by the look on her face that my answer hadn’t really satisfied her.  I remember her saying something to the effect of “Yeah, that’s great and all, but this thing you have going on over here (as her index finger made circles in the air) isn’t working for me.  How about you just turn the guest bedroom into a man cave?”

           Come again?  Surely I’d misheard her as she had just purchased a brand new custom headboard and bedding.  I knew she was getting ready to go all “Shabby Chic” with it and she’d been pretty excited.  Yet here she was offering to turn the room over to me.   I assumed she’d think twice after a day or two and the deal would be off, so I didn’t get too excited.  But of course, as you probably deduced, she didn’t take it back and here I sit.

           Oh yeah–there was a condition—but only one.  I’m not allowed to hang any airplane models from the ceiling.  This was her exact wording: ”No airplanes. Not one. Keep it classy.”  Of course I want to honor her wishes.  So in that spirit, not a single aircraft will be suspended from the ceiling.  Of course she never said anything about spacecraft, and thanks to eBay, I now have a shelf full rockets, flying saucers, and various other sci-fi related kits just waiting to be built and hung from above.  That 2 foot long model of the U.S.S. Cygnus (from Disney’s The Black Hole) is going to look sweet!

–Mike

Next time—the making of one nerd’s dream room.