Over a 48-hour period last week, I discovered something very important. I can get along just fine without my wife.

That does not mean that I want to get rid of her or think taking care of our daughter alone is easy. All I’m saying is that I can do it.

Maria went away for work for a couple of days last week. Actually, she went to Las Vegas without me, but my complaints about that are another topic for another time.

Because of her trip, I took a little time off of work so I could play Mr. Mom. I know two days cannot compare to taking over the job full time. I just know I would rock the socks off the whole single Dad thing.

Not that I want to find out or anything.

Of course, not everything went perfectly. Maria left Wednesday afternoon, and I took Thursday off of work. So I had to handle the whole morning routine that day all by myself. To add to the degree of difficulty, we planned an early-morning visit from the air conditioning repairman.

Everything got off to a good start. I got up early. My daughter followed. We ate breakfast and had plenty of time to spare before the carpool arrived. She used this opportunity to do some work on a school project due at the end of the week.

I brewed some coffee and chatted with the repairman before taking a phone call from Maria, up at 4 a.m. Vegas time because her body was confused.

We talked, I sipped coffee and time slipped away. All of a sudden, the car pool had arrived. I hustled Bridget downstairs to leave, confident that our early-morning breakfast had her ready to go without any problems.

Except I kind of, sort of forget to make her lunch.

Lucky for her, I had plenty of time to recover and already planned on coming to the school to volunteer that day. Once I figured out that the AC could be repaired without forcing me to sell my daughter, I packed up her lunch and headed off for a fun day at the middle school.

I managed to get her the food and didn’t really embarrass her all day long. That’s another reason why I really know I can pull this solo parenting thing off if I needed to. Once again, I don’t want to do it. I just like knowing I can.

Sure, I forgot to make a lunch, but movies are filled with examples of plucky kids who overcome the problems their overwhelmed single parents face. Thwt would totally happen to me.

Or maybe I would totally lose it because I couldn’t remember which day was trash day and when I needed to drive the car pool. But guys in that situation always find some woman to rescue them from despair in the movies, right?

Come to think of it, I shouldn’t get too cocky. I’m lucky I remembered to throw out the things in the fridge which needed to go in Friday’s garbage and that I didn’t stain anything in 48 hours alone.