I’ve always had a roof over my head, so I should consider myself lucky. Granted, at times, the roof wasn’t especially great, but it still managed to keep a majority of the outside elements from entering my living space. For the most part, though, I’ve been very happy with the places I’ve lived in. Oh sure, there are a few apartments from the early years I probably couldn’t stomach these days, but even they were more than adequate. I never felt I was missing anything until recently. What I’d been missing all these years, my friends, was a garage.

I’ve only really had one for about six months so far, and I can’t imagine how I’ve managed to get along up until now. We had one when I was a kid, but I never hung out in there much because my dad was always in there drinking beer and dicking around with some sort of tool. After all these years, I finally understand the simple beauty of drinking beer and dicking around with tools. It’s sad when I think about all the time I’ve wasted drinking beer in crowded bars, hitting on women who had no use for me and getting ripped to the tits with my buddies when there was perfectly good tools and beer waiting for me in the garage.

I should point out that it’s never a good or safe idea to run complicated and dangerous machinery while you’re drinking alcohol. I should also point out that it totally fucking rocks to do just that. So you accidentally saw a portion of your finger off or end up with a drill bit stuck in your thigh? The agony of personal injury can’t possible compare to the joy of placing a sweaty beer can on the new shelf you just mounted to the wall. Granted, the shelf wasn’t really for holding beer cans when you started, but it fits just fine there, and you may have to build five or six more of them before the Sunday afternoon is over.

As an added tip, if you find you aren’t hurting yourself nearly enough with just beer and power tools, try adding some whiskey to the equation. It won’t be long before a regular Band-Aid won’t even come close to covering the wound. The good news is you’re just a six-pack and a few drill holes away from mounting a first-aid kit somewhere on the wall.

The garage is more than just the drinking, power tools and seeping wounds, however. It’s also a fine place to listen to music and hang various posters. Now that I think about it, I’m just a bed and a bureau away from my garage looking exactly like my bedroom in high school. Anyway, music in the garage sounds better for some reason. I think it’s the song selection more than the acoustics, though. It only seems right to play classic rock or country out there. I’m a huge fan of other music in general, but in this situation, I feel the need to announce my mannishness with as much authority as possible. I’m thinking about trying some old Devo next weekend, but I worry even that may not be appropriate for this setting.

Since I’ve been spending so much time in the garage, one thing has become very evident to me. I may need to lower my work efficiency way down because there’s a chance I could finish up most of the work anytime now. I almost shudder just thinking about being back in the house proper watching TV all weekend. I now understand why many garages always seem in at least some form of disarray. It’s because a finished garage is no longer fun in any way. If my pace keeps up, I may have to begin vandalizing my own property just so I can repair it.

My only other option is that I may have to come up with some sort of hobby to bide my time in the garage with the winter months approaching. Even though I’ve tried to convince everyone that drinking beer actually is a “sort of” hobby, I feel like I need something else to go along with it. I believe this hobby will have to be some sort of intensive crafting project with vast amounts of wood or possibly metal. I don’t really care as much about the particular vehicle so much as the process ... and the beer. This would be easier if I had any sort of skill set at all.

It is unclear to me why the garage is so fascinating, but I can tell you this: It isn’t because it keeps the cars out of the elements. In fact, if my Christmas wish list comes true, there probably won’t even be enough room for the vehicles, what with the radial arm saw and the drill press taking up most of the space. Though I’m still not certain how to use them or what they are for exactly, I do know that I really, really need them.

The more I think about it, I may just have to build another garage to take care of the cars and the overflow from the first garage. Ah, it’s such a beautiful dream. I could probably afford the lumber, tools and time to build the supplemental garage. The biggest problem is I’m not sure I should be spending that much money on beer, no matter how awesome it seems at the time.