I didn’t get banished to Peet’s because I was hormonal.  It’s true I was going through something at the time, having to do with my work, my age, the Dad Bod I was developing that for whatever reason wasn’t deemed as sexy as the Dad Bods of Ben Affleck or Brad Pitt.  Apparently they’re allowed to walk around shirtless with Buddha Bellies or Spare Tires or whatever cute name the Paparazzi gives celebrities who get fat, but when I do it in my house, I’m told to cover up.  That wasn’t why I was banished to Peet’s.  I got banished because of artistic differences.

I had a nice little thing going at home before that.  I had set up the front room, away from our rowdy boys and their noise and shenanigans.  I had a large wood table, a chair on wheels, my laptop and this cute little ashtray my youngest boy made for me in second grade for father’s day.

“It’s not an ashtray, you piece of shit,” my wife had yelled.  “You’d know that if you’d listen once in a while.”

But, dear reader, what would you call a round saucer-like object made of red clay, half inch deep?

“It’s got a picture of our son’s face right there in the middle for chrissakes!”

And, dear reader, I do always make sure to rub my cigarets out along the inner rim, away from the picture, never near his face, so…

“It’s an objet d’art, you idiot!” she had yelled.  “Like a dish for paper clips.  An artistic memento you keep on your desk to remind you of your kid.  It’s not for your shitty cigarets or to throw at them, you heartless chicken shit bastard!”

To be fair, dear reader, I don’t keep paperclips.  And I had warned the little tyke to stay out while I was in there creating.

“I’m in here creating,” I had yelled.  “Now get the hell out!”

I wasn’t even aiming for him.  I may not be any Affleck or Pitt but I still have fairly decent aim and if I really wanted to hit him, I could have.  Plus he’s a quick and feisty little six-year old who’s become adept at dodging incoming.  But the ashtray did hit the corner of the door, chipping a chunk of wood off the frame with a loud clank that caused the little scoundrel to scream down the hall in full retreat.  I could hear his little bare feet tapping the tiles and knew she’d hear it soon enough and then I heard her big heavy feet marching up the hall.

“Yeah,” I had said before she could utter a word, “I threw his own ashtray at him to chase him off, I’m aware of the irony.  But he wouldn’t get the hell out while I was in here creating.”

And that’s when she told me the thing about how it wasn’t an ashtray but an “objay dart.”

“Don’t tell me about art,” I had yelled back.  “I know about art.  I’m a fucken artist!  In here creating art every fucken morning before it’s time to go to work, so don’t tell me about art.  That is a fucken ashtray!”

“OK get the hell out,” she had yelled with her eyes closed and pointing that sweet but menacing manicured finger of hers toward the front door.

And that’s how I got banished to Peet’s.  It was a couple years ago.  Before The Pandemic.

I’ve been back home since March and working at my big wood desk, sitting on my chair with wheels took some readjusting.  I had to relearn habits and routines.  Like making coffee at home.  Like realizing that eventually you do run out of those air-thin coffee filters.  As never-ending as the bag appears when you absent-mindedly peel off layer after diaphanous layer to make your  morning coffee, you eventually do run out and, dragging your ass to the kitchen for the coffee routine one morning, you find you’re out of motherfucken filters.  How had they gotten there in the first place?  Who had bought them the first time?  They seemed to have been in that drawer when we moved in.

But throwing on street clothes, putting on a mask and standing in line six feet apart from other masked shoppers and hoping to get into Ralph’s for coffee filters is small potatoes compared to what I had to deal with when The Pandemic forced me back in the house.  It had become a hot house full of hormones and angst.  Two of our boys were experiencing the onset of puberty while my wife and our housekeeper were going through their own surges of heat and rage that truckloads of St. John’s Wort couldn’t tranquilize.  All going on within the confines of our quaint little San Fernando Valley love nest.  There were morning lines at the shower and the can.  Fights over available skillets and toasters at lunch time; thrown elbows and shoving to get at the stovetop.  Caterwauls careened and bounced off ceilings and walls throughout the house “Who’s in here?” “What happened to the WiFi?” “Who touched the A/C?” “Who the hell is reheating broccoli?”  “Wipe down the frying pan after you use it!”  “Wipe down the seat after you use it!”  “Give me a second, I’m wiping!”  “What’re you doing in there for so long?” “Unlock the fucken door!”  “Get out!”

So we did what every reasonable family suffering from cabin fever during a Pandemic does – we got a cat.

Now it’s all different.  Not because we are calmer or or wiser or better.  We just yell different things at each other:  “Who’s turn is it to mine the nuggets out of Cat’s litter box?!”

Someday I’ll return to Peet’s Coffee and take my rightful place at the counter beside the screenwriters, real estate agents and retired lawyers.  But for now, seeing as how I just bought a new bag of gossamer-thin coffee filters, I should be good at home for the next decade or so.  It’s called “Cherishing What You Got” and even Burning Dad isn’t immune to it.  Happy 2021!