Don’t Get Angry, Get Mad

Your new house has a basement with a secret room. The entrance to the room is hidden and no one else has noticed it. Of course, you’re the only one who goes down to the basement much, for the laundry room. You begin using the room to store your books, some other personal things and some shopping excursions which you’d rather keep to yourself. Then, you meet a contractor, an old guy who is mostly retired but could use the odd job to keep the bills paid. So you hire him to refurbish that secret room, even give it a spooky security door. A door that locks by a code you set, from the outside. Now no one can get in there even if they do notice it some day.

A few years go by. The kids are all in school, you’re working a part time job and starting your own home business. The husband is doing well, working a lot of overtime and making good money.

Then, the day comes, when you discover your husband has his own secrets. He’s been keeping a place of his own too, sort of. His comes with another woman and it’s in some fancy highrise downtown. He’s also been stashing money in all kinds of accounts all over the place. You take all the information down into your secret room and just sit awhile. You cry, you rage and then you begin to plot.

It doesn’t take too long to clear out your secret room, though those books were pretty heavy. The contractor comes back for one last job, installing cameras and a thick plexiglass window in the hidden doorway of the secret room. The contractor is curious about your latest renovations but figures it’s some new kind of entertainment centre you’re building down there now.

And it is… sort of. You, at least, are very entertained watching your faithless husband pace and rant in his new accommodations. How long do you leave him there and what do you tell the kids?