By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

“A man’s home is his castle.” I think that is how the quote goes to which I retort, “My ass it is.” If a home is anyone’s castle it is usually the dominion of the queen and the princesses and princes under her care. Women rule the castle because men don’t care that much and women hold singular sway over the most important entertainment commodity in the house and that usually gets them all the candles and frilly pillows they want.

In the olden days as a single man, I had a poorly decorated and Spartan castle and didn’t know how good I had it. I had whole rooms dedicated to specific purposes. The idea of a “computer room” and an “exercise room” didn’t seem outlandish, it just seemed like a good idea for the rooms that didn’t hold my bed.

Well, those days are getting pretty small in my rear view mirror and these days I feel lucky to have one room on a long-term sublease in my wife’s house. That room is a collection of the items from my old house that didn’t meet death by dumpster or exile to the hunting camp. They are now the decorations of my “man cave.”

Guys you may have a room like this; a poorly decorated Fortress of Solitude, man-land, study or as the Mrs. calls mine the “I love me room.” The man cave is the last escape of a man who remembers the days when children’s toys, decorative boxes that don’t hold anything and paintings of flowers were not part of his daily life.

Man caves can be anywhere in a house or actually outside the house. I think half of the pre-fab sheds they’re selling at the home improvement stores these days are actually being purchased as man caves and not storage buildings, but of course the beauty of a man cave is that it can exist right along side stored stuff; as long as it is manly stored stuff. In the house, the man caves are in unused bedrooms (if you’re lucky) or maybe a bonus room above a garage. Some of the best I’ve seen have been converted garages where beer fridges and Sports Illustrated football phones complement the Craftsman 12-drawer rolling tool chest and bench grinder décor.

Speaking of décor, man caves come in many different styles, but one thing binds them – they were all decorated by men, straight men, with no sense of fashion or style. Most man caves, like mine, are decorated with sentimental items from our single lives, trophies for stuff we’ve won, autographed stuff, pictures of the man cave owner and buddies with a pile of dead fish and a beers in hand, a Daniel Moore painting and a smattering of taxidermy. Man caves are also accessorized with autographed baseballs, huggers that say funny stuff and bottles from “rare” beers.

Of course it isn’t just fancy stuff like a die cast replica of James Bond’s Aston Martin or framed photographs of Coach Bryant and Coach Dye visiting at a kitchen table that complete a man cave, there is also the need for noise. Man caves are unfulfilled without a radio and better yet a television set where a guy can finally watch his shows, ones that don’t include Muppets or women agonizing over relationship minutiae. A man cave television can be as fancy as a wall-hung plasma or a 13-inch set. They just have to be able to receive football game broadcasts and the Discovery channel (you know, for the “Deadliest Catch” marathon).

Another important man cave accessory is the musical instrument, which eight times out of 10 is a guitar and hopefully electric. The other two times they are drums. Guitars and drums are the only instruments allowed in a man cave except for the occasional bass. We aren’t trying to recreate the philharmonic here…we’re trying to play Rush’s “Tom Sawyer.”

My man cave is important to me. Without it I wouldn’t have a place to write for this publication twice a month or a place to display my collection of miniature John Deere tractors or watch Sig Hansen and the crew of the Northwestern sledge hammer giant chunks of ice off their ship and haul in Dungeness crab by the pot-full.

So here’s to the man cave! To celebrate I’m going grab a beer outta’ the mini-fridge and dust off my collection of Pinewood Derby trophies.

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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