Sitting on the dock of my couch, wasting time.

You know the song I so cleverly aped in the title? Or, maybe you don't: it's about a person sitting on the dock of the bay, pleasantly wasting time.

Well, there was nothing pleasant about the wastage I'm referring to.

No, that's incorrect: it was pleasant. A bit too pleasant, as I shall disclose shortly.

Two days I had last week, where I could work from home: which meant that when the work day was over, I was ready and willing to spend time with my family -specifically, in this case, my five year old son, as my daughter had to be chauffeured about on both occasions by my wife for either a hobby or tutoring.

For both those two windows of an hour or so, he played Roblox, and I played Xbox -not the same game, just playing side by side, pleasantly in each other's company, checking in on him now and again, on the couch.

Once the second day had concluded and the winding down of gears and last little tasks had begun, I started wondering: what was I doing? I'd been indulging in my favourite drug, gaming, justifying it by having my song nearby yet shoved onto a gaming drip next to me, but not once properly gaming together, in whatever format that may be.

Thus did my mind spiral into dark, recriminating places, and dark thoughts breed dark dreams: I dreamt I was in a far away land, fighting and struggling to escape it and return home -which I did, dirty and penniless, and somehow reached out to my wife, to find that ten years had passed, and reuniting, tearfully, with my estranged family, tears of joy at seeing them, and of bitterness at the lost time.

And, that is the depressing theme which stuck with me as a bad case of BO in the morning: lost time.

Because, that is what was happening: I was brazenly wasting time in my family's presence, with each of us in another land, far away from everyone else. How long could this precious resource be squandered? Days? Months? Years?

I asked my children's forgiveness that same night (my ten year older daughter was amused and nonplussed, while my son was nodding with a sad, knowing expression) and made reparations that same weekend: it was good, it felt that I'd placed a foot back on the good dad path, after having wandered down a game trail in search of an elusive and fleetingly satisfying kill.

Long may I keep walking down this path, be it at times steep and irksome, but with the most amazing views and discoveries.

Your trudging on hiker,

Stefano Ronchi