Today is my first day off in 19 days. Yes, that is 19 days straight working, most days 11 or 12 hours long. (Some longer, a few shorter.) So, you say, “What do you have to THINK about that, Doc?”

Well, here is what has happened. My house has turned into a locker. Not a locker room, mind you. But simply a locker. It is a place that we drop things off, on the way to the next thing. It is not a destination, but a storage spot.

At Target at back-to-school time, you can find mirrors and little storage thing-ees that facilitate using your locker. We don’t use them here. No-SIR-ee.

Our locker is for backpacks, briefcases, clothes (usually plucked from baskets or tossed dirty, willy-nilly), blackberries and phones to recharge, shoes, football uniforms, and piles of mail (which likely include bills). Any food items are to grab and go. One difference is that we sleep in the locker. But it isn’t for comfort, just practicality.

This week included multiple football practices, an evening (okay NIGHT) in the emergency room with a broken hand, big dance, two tests, multiple quizzes, and like a thousand and fifty hours on the telephone and e-mail on Hurricane Katrina, oh, and let’ s not forget the calls not made to check in on the post-lung cancer operative Dad (doing great), and newly jaundiced mom-in-law (TBD). Whew!

Tonight, we had dinner at the table. It was such a treat that the sixth-grader insisted on candles. It was a special occasion.

The same, said, sixth-grader brought up (in a confused movie reference) the John Bloorman movie Hope and Glory. The movie chronicles a young family during the WWII Blitz in London, and how the family (mostly young son) coped most excellently.

So, maybe life with house as locker isn’t as damaging as I thought. Or maybe the plates filled with a meal cooked on the stove in the locker and the candles on the locker table were a welcome relief.

Maybe (I think) the locker might have been transformed back into a home.