Confession

I realize this does not paint me in a flattering light, but here goes.

This is, in fact, my basement. 

Most particularly the air hockey table that has seen approximately 12 hours of actual air hockey activity and about 23 months as a storage surface/laundry center. As in sorting all the laundry on it, keeping all the laundry baskets on it, and occasionally the extra room to actually fold laundry on it. It is also the prime destination for all things Christmas when I can barely cope with taking the decorations down, let alone sort them all back out into their various boxes and put them away. There is, in fact, a whole wall of storage closets in my basement but, as I send things on their merry way down the stairs, they often get piled up in front of the closet doors in such a way that they will no longer open, rendering the closets next to useless.

Now I realize that many people have basements, or attics, that look like this. What made it fodder for the strip is the fact that the rest of my house looks pretty organized and together. (Let me rephrase that - when the kids are all in school for the day and can't get anything back out, then the house looks pretty together. Summer is right out. The entire house is a disaster from top to bottom. I have learned to embrace this reality and simply wait for September.) What really pulled the "Dorian Gray" element in was when I was prepping the house to have people over. It is truly amazing how much stuff you can throw into paper bags and stuff into closets or send to the basement in order to create the "ultimate entertaining environment" illusion.

Of course, I have to hope that none of the folks I have over actually read the strip or this blog or my cover is completely blown :-)

And heaven forbid any of our guests actually want to play air hockey.