The Enchanted Man Cave

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, a boy and girl fell in love. They spent so much time at each other’s respective apartments, that their respective roommates were like, “OMG why don’t you just move in together?” And the two love birds were like, “OMG, you’re right!”

And so they did. They found a reasonably cute, reasonably sized, two-bedroom apartment close to the downtown area and combined the contents of their two households. But there was one small problem. The boy half of this couple had boxes and boxes of things, boxes which hadn’t been opened since he haphazardly packed them when he moved out of his parents’ house. There they stood, a fortress of sealed boxes, their exact contents unknown. Now, rather than go through these mystery boxes and sort out the treasure from the rubbish, the boy put the boxes into a moving van, where they were dropped off into the spare room the boy and girl had decided, as they mapped out their life together there, would be an office and exercise room.

There they sat, the lonely boxes. They sat through a summer, a winter, a marriage proposal, a wedding, and two anniversaries of said wedding. In those three years, maybe a third of the boxes had been dealt with, if the girl was to be generous. However, the boy appeared to have placed an enchantment upon the boxes and the room, wherein he would unpack one box and sort its contents, yet the room would appear no less cluttered than before! While the imagined purposes of the room were technically achievable—there was indeed an elliptical trainer and a desk in there— the room was so cluttered with the boy’s belongings that it has really become the Enchanted Man Cave, where the boy would go to do boy things like play video games and (probably) look at porn on the internet (the girl does not pry much into the intimate affairs of the boy when he is in the Enchanted Man Cave).

All seemed lost, and the girl had become resigned to fate, her hopes of a spare room for their mutual enjoyment dashed, until one day, like a beacon, her fairy godsister came upon her and  granted her a magical opportunity. “I am looking for a place to stay for the summer,” the fairy godsister declared, and she offered a handsome sum to the boy and girl in exchange for lodging in the Enchanted Man Cave.

“Oh, fairy godsister, this sounds too good to be true,” quoth the girl, “but I’m afraid the enchantment the boy has placed over the Man Cave has rendered it forever a Man Cave. Alas and alack!” However, after productive conversation with the boy as to the benefits the godsister’s handsome sum would bring to their household, the girl  convinced the boy to lift the enchantment.

The boy and girl are not out of the woods, yet. The spell for lifting the enchantment will require both their efforts and take several days of labor. Even so, they are (okay, she is) determined to lift the spell over the Man Cave, in order to transform it into livable quarters for the girl’s fairy godsister. After two months’ time, foregoing any other enchanted boxes, the room may be repurposed, hopefully into a habitable workspace for both the boy and girl to live happily ever after.

Please wish the girl godspeed.