Animal House

Returning home to find your kids’ friends have trashed the place – it’s enough to put Tom Hodgkinson‘s Stoic credentials to the test

My week of hell – during which I fell off my bike on an icy road, had root canal treatment, got a sore throat, had to get up early every morning to record the audiobook of How to Live Like a Stoic while also settling in a newly adopted cat who thought the bath was a cat loo – ended badly with a house party for our son’s 21st.

Thanks to hellish experiences at previous teenage parties, we decided to get out of town for this one, and leave them to it.

The morning after the night before, the day started well as we’d had no complaints from neighbours. WhatsApp remained silent on the matter. But our other son messaged to say: “If I were you, I wouldn’t go home for a couple of days.” And the party had apparently gone on till six in the morning. (Luckily we have the most brilliant and understanding neighbours.)

We heeded his advice and spent a second night away from home, staying with friends. When we got home, things looked OK. They’d cleared up: there were ten bulging black bin liners outside the front of the house. And inside there was no stink of tobacco mixed with stale alcohol.

But on further inspection, we found the following: damaged loo seat; two broken tiles on the bathroom floor; smashed picture (the print itself was OK, just broken glass); broken mug (a nice pottery one with “Victoria” written on it); several broken glasses; a couple of cans and bottles remaining in the back yard; stain on chair; stain on bedroom carpet; fag butts in yard; a torn sheet; and a pile of vomit in the neighbour’s front garden.

What do you think? Did we get off lightly? Would you or have you ever let your offspring have an all-night party in your house?

For us, never again. Why did we let them do it? Would it not be better to put some money behind the bar in a pub and let the professionals deal with it?

Luckily for me, I am well schooled in Stoic thought, and take on board the credo of wise Seneca: “All adversity he counts mere training.”

Which reminds me, come and see me get grilled on the Stoics by the legendary John Humphrys in London on 12 February. Get tickets here.

Live well,
Tom

PS If you missed our fantastic “drink”with Kari Leibowitz last week, members can watch the video here.

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SELECTED COMMENTS

These comments were mailed to us after an earlier version of this piece was sent out as a newsletter. We like to publish a selection and reserve the right to edit them for clarity. Please add your thoughts in the box below.

Sir: I feel for you both. We did it for an 18th but refused to leave the house. It was still appalling but not as much as it would have been. As you say, never again. What a rotten week for you. But it sounds as though you got through a lot of bad stuff in a short period of time so now it’s obviously followed by a blissful period of calm and a high proportion of good things winging your way. That’s my logic and I’m sticking to it.
Jane Parsons

Sir: I couldn’t help noting the irony of your hellish week and the title of the audio book: How to Live Like a Stoic. Talk about timely?
Eric Banks

Sir: I am a long-time Idler fan and subscriber from across the pond, hailing from the mitten state (Michigan). Having pre-ordered your forthcoming book, “How to Live Like A Stoic” back in October, I was pleasantly surprised when I received an email from Waterstones on the 15th of January indicating that it had been shipped. This, however, then led me to assume that it would be mired in a customs quagmire for weeks, what with our preposterous and ever-changing tariff situation, potentially not even arriving by its publication date. Happily, quite the opposite happened. To my great delight, the parcel arrived at my doorstep in yesterday’s post! I felt a distinctly delicious furtiveness in opening it almost a full month before its publication (and nearly three months ahead of its US release date) and immediately sat down with a cup of tea in a comfy chair, reading it until evening. Having now just finished it this morning with another cup of tea after a good night’s sleep, I felt compelled to send this missive.
The book was charming, informative, hilarious, adroit and altogether a joy to read. I have dipped my toe into philosophy and the Stoics in previous years, but mostly floundered around and believed myself not intellectually up to the task. Your book made it accessible and enjoyable to boot. I now look forward to revisiting my antique pocket edition of “The Discourses of Epictetus” which I inherited several years ago from a beloved uncle.
Thank you for your wonderful book and indeed the fantastic magazine that is The Idler. I also subscribe to New Escapologist, Slightly Foxed and The Simple Things and often joke, since one must laugh in order to endure the cascading downfall of American democracy and the horror that is Trump, that when I obtain my UK dual citizenship (hopefully within the next 6 months – I will attempt concision and simply thank my dearly departed Scottish grandmother, my pre-1983 date of birth, and Section 4L of the BNA 1981), sell everything stateside and move to the UK it will mostly be to save money on all my subscriptions. Ha! But I digress.
Thank you to everyone involved in bringing the Idler to print and for continuing to do what you do best.
Rebecca Pawloski

A Drink with the Idler

Our next guest on “A Drink with the Idler” is CEO and author James Reed, who will be talking about why it’s good business to be a good business.
Thursday 29 January, 6-7pm.
Book tickets here.
It’s FREE to subscribers – otherwise £7.50.

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