Tikkabik

Working at home has advantages. The dress code is always casual, you don't have to buy lunch, and you're far away from office politics. There are some downsides too, like never being away from the office.

Bonnie is really good about shuttling the kids to their things -- playdates, Kung Fu, baseball practice and so on, and I usually do the grocery shopping and such on the weekend when I can help it. On weeks like this when my boss is away, one things falls off the charts in terms of importance: Personal hygiene.

I haven't left the house to go any farther than the corner to take my kids to the bus stop or pick them up since Monday. Which, by the way, was the last time I took a shower. See, the Web site's first post is around seven and our kids have to be out the door at 8:15 precisely to get the bus. I'm not a morning person, so often I'll sleep in for as long as I can before I finally have to drag ass out of bed and get to work.

The stubble on my face and head has been growing longer and longer for the past few days, but I didn't honestly realize how bad it was until Bonnie came downstairs to grab some printouts off the laser printer in my office. As I'm talking with her about this cool tech in a story I'd just written, I noticed she kept wrapping the paper around her mouth like a Hong Kong pedestrian trying to avoid SARS. Her eyes kept squinting and watering like she'd just rubbed them after opening a habanero pepper with her fingers.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"You ..." she said, grimacing. "You ... have really bad ... BO." Then she left the room in a hurry.

So, if you ever plan to visit me at home, the moral of this story is to make it on a Monday or Tuesday, before I turn ripe.