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I missed the exit ramp for Midlife Crisis Avenue. I got stuck in traffic and zipped right on down Life’s Highway, and never slowed down until my tire blew out at Senior Moments Crossroads.
Pardon the motorized metaphors. It’s just that I’ve grown wistfully nostalgic for the Corvette I never had. A Corvette is why I wanted a midlife crisis.
A midlife crisis, as I understood it, is when your age is inappropriate for your behavior. When you throw inhibitions and common sense out the window. When you go white-water rafting even though you’ve never before paddled either a kayak or a canoe, and you’re not entirely sure which you’re in at the moment but you hope it’s the one that won’t fall apart in that waterfall you’re about to whoosh over.
I almost had a midlife crisis once. When my daughter was a teenager, I bought Rollerblades so we could skate together.
When you’re 14 – which she was – and you fall, you spring right back into place, like one of those bendable, poseable figures.
When you’re not 14 – which I wasn’t – and you fall, you stay there. It takes an ambulance and three or four sturdy attendants to pick you up and find all the pieces that broke off.
I never took the skates out of the box.
Now my daughter is nearly old enough to have a midlife crisis of her own. And I decided a Corvette made for a much more sensible midlife crisis.
What I ended up with was a no-frills, no-chills small black Jeep described as a perfectly tame vehicle for an old man to drive. It’s a midlife crisis on a budget.
Worse, twice in the last six months, I locked my keys inside the thing. Instead of wild and spontaneous, I’ve morphed into mild and oblivious.
“You know,” I told my wife, standing outside my locked Jeep, “if I had a Corvette, I could slide through the sunroof.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t just sport a white beard like Santa Claus, you’ve got his belly. You wouldn’t fit. Besides, you’d throw out your back trying to climb up to the roof. You creak nowadays, remember?”
“Santa’s older than I am, and he trounces on rooftops and slithers up and down chimneys.”
My wife shook her head. “Not likely. I think Santa sends his elves while he sits at McDonald’s sipping senior coffee.”
“That’s it!” I said.
“What?”
“I’ve been standing out here trying to remember where I was trying to go in the first place. The cafe offers 20 percent off on Tuesdays to people of a certain age. Our age.”
“It’s Wednesday.”
“Oh.” I sighed. It was time for my nap anyway.
Back when I was raising kids, a mortgage, a dog and assorted cats, I dreamed of the day my midlife crisis would arrive. I’d jump in my Corvette and tool down the highway, relishing adventure after adventure with my sweetie by my side.
My sweetie’s by my side, but we’re parked in easy chairs, our legs covered by afghans, and we squint at notices for class reunions and bus trips to quilt shows.
What happened? All I can figure is that while I was trying to figure out if Corvette should be red or blue, or maybe silver, my midlife tiptoed out the door. And senior discounts wobbled in.
Life’s a highway. But I’m keeping an eye out for the turnaround in the interstate. When I find it, and if I remember, I’m making a U-turn. I’m going back for my midlife crisis.
— Counsel the geezer at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.