Why is it that when my neighbours have friends over, they all seem to hang out in their garages with the doors open? Why not go inside where there are comfortable sofas? Or if they want to be outside, why not the other side of the house with the grass and the patio?
Is this an Auckland thing? Something I don’t get because I’m insufficiently interested in cars?
My best guess is that they’re all smokers, whose rental agreements don’t allow them to smoke indoors. But they don’t want to go all the way outside, so they have come up with the theory that the garage counts as outside if the door is open.
I grew up in Timaru, so for the first 17 years of my life, I was something akin to an anthropologist submerged in a foreign culture.
On the basis of observations of my brothers and their friends, the garage is for guys. Couches and patios are for chicks. Regardless of whether you touch the car, or if there’s even a car in the vacinity, the ‘carness’ of the garage makes it a guy place. It guarantees you safety from doilies and coasters and conversations about Oprah. There are some chicks who count as de facto guys, and these chicks you can have in your garage without ruining its guyness.