Trading places and spaces

I REMEMBER THE moment she decided to leave. It was a Saturday night. She came out into the garage to find the toddler and me waxing the little convertible and chomping on unlighted cigars. They were a buck each at the liquor store, so it wasn’t like they were cheap or anything.

“What are you two doing?” she asked, arms folded.

“Waxing the car,” we said, only we slurred it a little on account of the cigars. You know, the way Walter Matthau used to.

“The cigars,” she said, arms still crossed. “What are you doing with cigars?”

Note to new husbands: When they fold their arms, they mean business. It’s their signal that unless you change your immediate behavior, you may never touch them again in any meaningful way. Remember, arms folded: bad; arms open: good.

A week later, my bride was gone, having taken that cigar-chomping toddler with her. Good thing, because obviously he could be a pretty bad influence.

Now she’s down in Florida, for what she said was a visit to her mom and dad’s but what I presume is really some sort of rehab. You know these self-medicating L.A. moms. They just can’t control themselves.

Whatever the reason, she fled and left me with the rest of the kids and a house in need of constant upkeep. Dust the place every three days? Come on. How inconvenient is that?

“We’re gonna starve,” predicted the boy, which didn’t turn out to be true. We ate almost constantly, if not well.

“While Mom’s gone, I think we should redecorate,” the older daughter said one day, through a mouthful of takeout chow mein.

“That’d be great,” I said, nibbling on a greasy egg roll.

So the older daughter, back for the weekend, decides that to fill the void left by her fugitive mother, she will update the den and kitchen area -- throw down a few rugs, buy a couple of tables, that sort of thing. Allowing them to do so without their mother’s approval is a risky venture. But I didn’t get where I am today by being careful.

“Can I have a check?” my daughter says.

“No.”

“How about a credit card?”

“No.”

“Then how do you expect me to do this?” she begs.

“Chutzpah,” I say.

“What’s chutzpah?” asks the little girl.

“Just give me a check, Dad,” says my older daughter, so I do.

I also throw in several Chuck E. Cheese tokens I had on my dresser and one of those goofy annoying credit cards from Kinko’s. I tell her that with all that in her pocket, there should be no excuses.

“How’s it going back there?” my wife asks in her first phone call of the day.

“You won’t believe,” I say, “what your daughter is doing for you.”

“What?” she asks.

“I can’t say any more than that,” I explain, and hang up pretty quickly.

Late in the afternoon, the older daughter returns with a trunk full of goodies in her little green Civic:

* Three wall sconces from Marshall’s.

* A Gilligan’s Island thatch rug.

* A bundle of lavender from Trader Joe’s.

* A Craftsman-style bookcase in which to store the baby toys that always litter the den like little foot-shredding land mines.

They seem like simple touches, each of them, but the effect of all of them together is dramatic. When I hang the wrought iron sconces, the entry comes alive with a sort of Excalibur vibe. It makes me think of that fake castle along the interstate in Anaheim, where they ride horses while you’re trying to eat your steak.

“Mom doesn’t have much time to decorate,” the older daughter explains to me as she reorganizes the den.

“Yeah, Mom’s busy taking care of you,” the little girl says.

Actually, I’m pretty low maintenance, but I do prefer to be spoon-fed, and I require my daily sponge bath. Other than that, I am almost completely self-sustaining. I dress myself in the morning -- though like you, I prefer others to undress me at night. I guess that’s just the way we are, right?

In the meantime, the house has never looked better. Inspired by my daughters’ hard work, the boy and I even take a broom and knock cobwebs from up around the skylight, a difficult task we’ve been putting off forever.

“Hey, I killed a spider,” the boy says proudly.

“Won’t Mom be happy?” asks the older daughter, getting the vase of lavender just so.

“Mom’s gonna be so happy,” echoes the little girl.

She’ll be thrilled.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.