By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

When I was younger and my wife would leave town for a while, I'd go crazy with temporary bachelorhood.

I'd stay out late on weeknights, partying with long-lost friends and renewing acquaintances with bartenders I used to know. I would crawl home late at night, sleep till the crack of noon and stumble into work hung over, sometimes in the same clothes.

On weekends, I'd rent a convertible and cruise Waikiki looking for babes. I would invite them out for raucous parties that ended only when the champagne was gone and the sun came up over Sandy Beach.

Or at least that's what I always told my wife when she got home.

Fortunately, she knew me better. She knew I usually came straight home after work to feed the cats, sip a beer or two and then mope around the house, missing the nightly conversations with my best friend. On the weekends, I'd putter and prune till I was too tired to go out, then read myself to sleep.

I told her all those party lies so she wouldn't feel so bad about leaving me on my own.

Now, of course, I'm a lot more mature and handle the whole bachelor thing differently. I've learned to use the break in our time together as a period of self-renewal, a time to rediscover who I really am, a chance to vary my normally pleasant routine.

So when my wife went away for three weeks on a work project recently, I really lived it up. No lie. For 21 days, I did things my way:

• I hung my towels out to dry on the line, giving them a delightful raffishness that my wife calls scratchy.
• I changed the settings on all our ceiling fans to my satisfaction.
• One Saturday when I really did have a hangover, I stayed in bed and listened to the Cubs game on the radio, wearing nothing more than gym shorts and an ice pack.
• I blocked out any Oceanic Cable channels higher than 22.
• I strung party lights on the lanai and sometimes left them on all night.
• Didn't have to ask permission when I went out fishin'. (Actually, that's not true; it's a line from an old Tom Waits song, "Better Off Without A Wife," that I always wanted to use.)
• I watched the kind of films only a man could enjoy, including Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill." Didn't see a chick flick the entire time.
• Tempting the gastronomic fates, I loaded a slice of cold pizza with three different kinds of killer hot sauce and chased it with a cold Fresca one morning.

"Man, this is really living," I remember thinking just before the heartburn hit. Or maybe it was: "This is really man living."

In any case, I lived it up for three weeks as only a temporary bachelor could. And there's just one thing I'm going to say to my wife when she gets back and sees what shape the house is in: "Man, am I glad you're home."

And that's no lie.

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.