To be honest, I got a little cocky. I can only blame myself.

My wife went away for a few days recently, leaving me in charge of everything – the house, the meals and our daughter. I had complete control.

In the days and weeks leading up to this time, Bridget and I giggled over having the freedom to not put a clip on a bag of cereal of chips, just daring the food to go a little bit stale. In other words, I showed my true maturity level.

When we had the house to ourselves, we didn’t go nearly as crazy as we may have intimated, but we certainly had a little bit of extra fun. We didn’t have many bags we could leave unclipped, but we turned the TV up a little louder than usual and had no regard for normal rules of when the day’s newspaper moved from the dining room table to the recycling pile.

Like you, I am amazed the police never showed up to calm us down.

But one of my guilty pleasures when I have the house to myself is getting an opportunity to cook verboten foods.

My wife has an incredibly sensitive nose. I’m the guy who felt no effects when a new office area of mine at work was receiving no fresh air. A co-worker almost passed out. I just went about my business, thanks to my completely defective sense of smell.

A few things really set Maria off. I have written in the past about her aversion to turkey bacon. She loves the real thing, but the healthier (and admittedly not as tasty) treat smells putrid to her. So when I want some, I have to find a time when I can cook a whole packet with time left over to scrub down and air out the kitchen.

When she returned home, she cursed me for cooking turkey bacon. The only problem was, I didn’t cook any turkey bacon. Lest you think I won this battle, she did kind of bust me because there was an offending smell in the air.

I cooked crab cakes. Delicious, but apparently toxic-smelling, crab cakes.

I really tried to get rid of the odor. My cooking spree took place about 30 hours before she got home. I ran the fan on the range. I opened up the kitchen door and some window. I scrubbed down all areas which might hold the smell.

For God’s sake, I even lit a candle and cooked some foods which might cover the smell to keep me out of trouble.

Like I said, I only have myself to blame. I should have cooked them earlier in her trip. I should have left myself more time to clear the air. I should have baked cookies to mask the scent, like my daughter suggested.

Unfortunately, by the time she proposed that idea, we really didn’t have a window for baking, which is another failure on my part. I thought I could manage everything on my own, but fell way short.

But at least I have a half-dozen crab cakes in the freezer. I hope people at work like the smell when I bring them in for lunch. I’m not trying to warm them up at home.