When I walked into the office building in which Randy was working last Monday to get my free spousal flu shot, dragging with me my two little ones, I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen such an inviting place.

Other people might have seen a typical boring work environment, but I saw an oasis of gray partitioned spaces. Row upon row of little cocoon-like cubicles spread the length of the room. It was a beautiful, uniform, predictable place. Sure, it was a busy place. Every now and then, someone walked down one of the aisles. People sat in meeting rooms, meeting. Work was being done. And yet, it all seemed so ... oh, what's the phrase I'm looking for? ... blissfully without primary colors. Their chairs were not made by Fisher-Price. No one sat at their desks, chewing the tips off of crayons. I saw no evidence of marker use beyond white-board boundaries. These people had no "Backyardigans" stickers affixed to their computer monitors, and I hated and loved them for it at the same time. When they walked to the break room, no one followed them, asking, "What are you making? What are you making? Can I have some?" Coworker A took a sheet of paper from Coworker B's hands, and -- get this -- Coworker B didn't cry! What was this unthinkable utopia, and how could I get one of those three-and-a-half-wall condos of privacy?

Oh, wait -- that's right. I used to have one.

It wasn't a cube so much as a personal rectangle, and I never thought of it as being particularly posh back then. Largely because it wasn't. It was part of a hot and cramped office. There were no windows visible from any desk except the receptionist's, and that one had a view of a hallway. Sure, we had a mini-fridge stocked with Coke and the real possibility of running into a visiting Michael Jordan on the way to the restroom; but I never thought I'd find myself looking back wistfully upon the actual amenities of the cube itself, the fabric-covered particle board that enclosed me.

After all, my current office has a full, working kitchen and laundry room, five different flavors of Goldfish in the pantry and a fireplace. But it is also one big blob of toys and food crumbs and requests. There is no place to hide -- er, I mean, to concentrate on a task. And while I do pass an MJ on my way to the restroom occasionally, her jump shot is sorely lacking -- even if she did recently clock me between the eyes at close range with one of those little rubber balls you get from a gumball machine. ("Mommy, let's play catch again!" "Not now, dear, I'm bleeding.")

As I loaded my screaming brood ("Nooo! I want to stay with Daddy!" "Me too, dear. Me too.") back into my car after the flu shot, I realized I was suffering from an acute case of cubicle envy. Instead of beer goggles, I wore SAHM goggles that day; I could have gone any place where adults earned a living and mistaken it for a spa. I really do feel privileged to be able to stay home with my kids while they're young; this is a bonding time I'll never have again. I couldn't bear the thought of not being home with them at this point in my life as a mother. But every few weeks, I have a day like this one, where I'd like to sit in a proper conference room and hammer out a plan for a grown-up project before wrapping up the meeting by talking about Tina Fey's latest turn on Saturday Night Live. You just can't do that after a round of craft projects at the kitchen table with my current colleagues:

Me, packing up construction paper, etc.: "Great work, everyone. So, did you guys catch that Palin bit this weekend? Hysterical."

MJ & Little L:</strong> "Mommy, what does glue taste like?"

Cube-dwelling has its social merits, too. When I call Randy at work -- a line I like to call the "Bat Phone" -- and he has to go and do something important in engineering land before I'm finished asking him why I can't locate the vacuum cleaner, he lets me know in a civil way. "OK," he'll say quietly, "well, I've got to go. I'll see you at home." Working in a cubicle makes you a person who speaks in measured tones while on the job. A voice that is never too high, always just right. If he calls me at work, and I have to go and do something important in mommy land before he's finished speaking, I let him know like this: "MJ! I told you not to do that again! You cannot treat her like a cavewoman and drag her around by the arm! Go sit in the corner! (Crying in the background.) I've got to go. Click."

I tend to think cubicle envy, a form of it, anyway, is also why kids build forts from old bedsheets and pieces of furniture. They need time to themselves too, every now and then. We all need some sort of solitary confinement, a cube to call our own, a place to gather our thoughts, to feel collected. So let us all praise the cubicle. May it live long and prosper ... at least until I go back to work, and then I want my own office with a view.

Beth appears Tuesdays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Beth at her blog MotherBunker.