When I was a kid, my friends and I were always trying to build hideouts. We made them out of scrap lumber, we made them out of branches in the woods, and we made them out of old refrigerator boxes.

We actually called them "forts," because as soon as they were finished, we'd go to war, defending our territory by throwing pine cones at each other. In the winter, we'd build igloos, lobbing snow balls at any incoming attackers.

One summer day, inspired by a showing of "The Great Escape" on TV, my friends and I decided to make an underground fort by excavating a huge hole under the wooden porch of my parents' house. Five of us crammed in there with shovels, digging away all day like junior coal miners.

I figured nobody would notice, and I was right, at least until dinner time, when my mother came to find us. I still remember her standing on the driveway, clutching her chest and wondering whether her front porch was about to fall in.

Part of it was that we liked to play war, but looking back, I remember a big part of the satisfaction was that we'd built some place that was ours, that we didn't have to share with the rest of our families. I remember standing outside of a fort I'd built all by my lonesome, taking pride in ownership of my own place and a job well done, at least for a moment, before a pine cone smacked me upside the head.

As an adult, I have a three-story house with six bedrooms and a finished basement. But it's not really mine. When I want to watch TV, I have to find one that isn't already blaring "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody." When I sit at the kitchen table to read the paper, someone squeezes by every three or four minutes, making me spill my coffee.

I write my column each week on a small table piled high with mail, kids' homework and teen magazines. (Right now I'm staring at an article about how Hilary Duff is dealing with the breakup with her "BF" -- teenspeak for "boyfriend".)

That's why, for the past seven months, I've been working nights and weekends to turn our little garage into a home office/writing studio. While I still have a few pieces of molding to go and the mini fridge isn't turned on because it's still filled with tools, it's inhabitable. It has cable TV, high-speed Internet and three phone lines. It even has a gas fireplace. Most importantly, though, it has a big strong lock on the door, and my wife and I have the only keys.

Last Friday night, my wife and I told the kids we'd stay home and rent a movie from the cable box. We flipped through the channels, negotiating like diplomatic envoys, until we found a movie that they all could agree on. Unfortunately, it was a movie that neither parent had any interest in seeing.

As we sat there through the opening credits, I sighed. Then my wife turned to me.

"I've got an idea," she whispered. "Let's go hide out in the garage!"

I nodded and we both slipped off the couch. I tiptoed into the kitchen and got a couple of beers from the fridge. Closing the kitchen door quietly, we ran out to the garage the way convicts do when they see a hole in the barbed-wire fence.

Out in our hideout, we settled into the old loveseat and turned on the TV. There was nothing on, but it didn't matter. We watched an old movie on cable in silence and drank our beers. I even got out a cigar.

After a few minutes, my wife started to feel guilty.

"Call the house," she said, "and let them know we're out here."

I tried to pretend I didn't hear her. The whole point of having a hideout, in my mind, was that people didn't know where, exactly, you were hiding.

"Come on," she said. "I don't want them to think we went out without telling them!"

I reluctantly got up and picked up the phone.

"Fine," I said, "First one that tries to come out here, I'm pegging with a pine cone!"