I remember when I was a kid, and me and my best friend would sneak around in his house without much to do. One time his dad appeared and told us to follow him. He lived in the kind of stable but slightly boring marriage where you go to bed early after having watched American sitcoms. He stopped by a small cupboard. It looked like any other furniture in the house. Suddenly he fingered somewhere behind it and a small door flipped open. It was full of Scotch.

Later on I've begun to realize the full significance of having such secrets. It's a man-thing. It starts when you're a little boy. You find a stick, not just any stick, but the greatest warrior stick in the forest. You quickly sharpen it with a knife and hide it somewhere safe. When you grow to become a teenager, you hide all porn magazines, beer/pot and pictures of girls in boxes somewhere, praying your mom won't go on to look there when she's cleaning.

Then you become a man, a husband. That's when you need a stash, a protected zone, a place in the garage, a spot in the garden, a box full of old shit in the attic--it's gotta be there. Women always want to throw that kind of stuff away or ridicule those secret zones, and that's why we have to hide them in cupboards and garages. The point is not that you really need them. Rarely you do. The point is to have them, know that you have them, and that everyone else stays out.