The Secret to a Successful Midlife Crisis

We’d never had a midlife crisis in our town that anyone could remember until Ed Ferlacher had his. He quit his job running the chipper/shredder at the mulch plant and started wearing his shirts unbuttoned down to his navel, with a gold dog chain around his neck. Then he bought a brand new red Corvette and took up with some long-legged blonde with big hair and painted-on exercise pants and a chest that cleared the way in front of her like a snowplow.

We thought he’d hit the lottery at first, and the Convenient Mart did a land office business in lottery tickets for about a week. Everybody was talking about it.

We held an impromptu meeting down at Ernie’s Bar one day that turned out to be more about the blonde than about Ed. Somebody said he thought he’d seen her up in the city once going into a lady’s unmentionables shop, and that started somebody else going on about what kind of woman had to go all the way up to the city for unmentionables that she couldn’t order from the Sears catalogue, and pretty soon everybody was throwing around opinions about unmentionables like a food fight.

We decided that Ed must be having a midlife crisis, whatever that was, because if he had hit the lottery, he would have sent his wife, Eileen, on a cruise or to some island someplace before he started going around with the blonde — only somebody with a genuine mental problem would flaunt something like that blonde in front of a sturdy and robust woman like Eileen. Some thought he’d taken a blow to the head, but 40 years of blows to the head made Ed the way he was even before he went nuts with the blonde.

The problem was that nobody really knew what a midlife crisis was. A few nonsense ideas were thrown around ─ Deke Lawson thought his stud bull might have had a midlife crisis once when it couldn’t make the mount for a whole summer, but nobody had ever heard of a bovine midlife crisis, and it turned out to just be an infection anyway. And old deaf Sam Warner shouted, “HAD A MIDWIFE CRISIS WHEN THE DAUGHTER WAS BORN. HAD TO BRING THE BABY MYSELF.” But someone shouted, “MIDLIFE, SAM!” four times until Sam shouted back, “YES, ABOUT MIDLIFE I GUESS.”

So, as with all things cerebral and intellectual at Ernie’s, it was left for me to do the brain work. Besides, I had a personal interest in the matter: After watching Ed, I wanted a midlife crisis, too.

At home that night I dug out an old psychology textbook from college and peeled off the cellophane wrapper and began researching midlife crises. I found out that a midlife crisis happens at a time of life when a person is faced with the prospect of their own mortality. That was disappointing because I had faced the prospect of my own mortality many of times — falling off of roofs; dumping truckloads of lumber on my head; sinking boats in raging storms; telling my wife Prudy that her new dress was a great costume for the Halloween party — but I never got a midlife crisis out of any of them. What I read next, though, offered some hope: A mid-life crisis, it said, is experienced by some as they realize they have reached a midpoint in their life and experience conflicts or dissatisfaction within themselves because of unrealized goals.

That was perfect. I had all kinds of unrealized goals: I’d wanted to fix the bathroom door for almost two years, for instance, and I always wanted to learn how to play the harmonica, and that old shed out back that I’d always wanted to fix up was slowly being taken over by possums.

I was obviously due for a midlife crisis. I announced it to my Prudy, the next morning at breakfast:

“I’m having a midlife crisis,” I told her as gently as I could. “I’ve been thinking about sports cars and other women.” This, of course, was true because I’d been admiring Ed’s new Corvette and just the other day I’d sat in front of the beer cooler at Ernie’s because Praline, the bartender, was wearing a loose top that drooped way out whenever she reached down for a beer. “It looks like I’m going to have a midlife crisis soon,” I said.

“You ate my piece of toast!” she snapped. “That was my toast!”

I could see how broken up she was. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I told her in my most consoling voice, “but there are some things a man just can’t help. It’s chemistry and destiny and philosophy. Please try to understand.”

Realizing then the terrible thing I was suggesting, she spat, “It’s psychology, not philosophy. Touch my bacon and I’ll fill you with fork holes.”

I could see the grief was destroying her. I wondered briefly if maybe I should seek some professional help like they say in the advice columns, but the only professional in town was Berl Marnstock, the accountant, and he was in the middle of tax season.

I tried to soothe Prudy’s battered self-esteem. “Try not to take it personally,” I said, “It’s not you, it’s me. There’s another woman in my life, too. I can’t say who.” I made a mental note to look around for a midlife crisis woman.

Prudy wiped a tiny, mournful drop of jelly from her chin. “You need to clean the garage today.”

I spent the next few hours searching my midlife mind trying to think of where I might find a midlife crisis woman. I was also steering clear of Prudy, who stood in the garage all morning with her fists on her hips. It was obvious my midlife crisis was killing her. I put on my jacket and decided to take a walk to see if there were any likely-looking midlife crisis women hanging around town.

When I rounded the corner of the garage Prudy was staggering to the curb under the weight of a box obviously far too heavy for her.

“Hey, you shouldn’t be doing that,” I scolded. “That is not good for you at all.”

“Oh, thank God,” she sighed.

“Those are valuable keepsakes,” I told her. “You march right back in there and put them back where you found them.”

She dropped the box in an explosion of screws and nails and baby food jars, a sign of the emotional storm raging inside her.

“Oh thank goodness,” I said, relieved, “it’s just that box of old hardware I thought I threw out last summer. That’s okay then. But you might want to ask Phil next door if he wants it before you carry it the rest of the way to the curb. He might take it off your hands.” Prudy only thought I was a pack rat because she’d never seen Phil’s garage.

I could feel her eyes burning into the back of my head for the entire three blocks into town. My boyhood friend and lifelong accomplice, Ludie Carper, came around the corner. “Hey, Lude,” I asked, “want to go look for some midlife crisis chicks with me?”

“Some what?”

“Midlife crisis chicks,” I said. “I’m having a midlife crisis and I need a hot woman to go around with. You know, Like Ed.”

“You trying to commit suicide?” Ludie asked. “Prudy’s up there staring at you like she did when you called her dress a Halloween costume.”

“I know,” I said. “I told her about it this morning. She’s pretty broken up. But a man can’t help a midlife crisis. It’s a philosophical thing that happens to him.”

“Psychological,” Ludie said. He was always pretending to grasp academics.

“If you knew anything about the complexities of the human psyche,” I told him, sounding like a disappointed school teacher, which was usually necessary with Ludie, “you would understand the cavernous and painful schadenfreude I’m wrestling with right now. I’m a victim of my own runaway philosophical destiny.”

“It’s psychosis you’re wrestling with.” Ludie said, smirking — rather naively, I thought. “I’m the one experiencing the schadenfreude.” It was just like Ludie to pretend to know something about German philosophy.

I decided not to embarrass him: “Fine then,” I said. “Are you going to help me find a midlife crisis chick or not?”

“Okay,” he agreed, “but why don’t we go into Ernie’s and have a beer until Prudy goes back in the house. She’s scaring me.”

I looked up and down the street and didn’t see any likely-looking midlife crisis chicks, so we went into Ernie’s.

“Hi, Praline,” I said, sliding onto a barstool in front of the beer cooler. “Nice shirt.” Praline was married, so she wasn’t a candidate for a midlife crisis chick because her husband, Braun, is 11 feet tall. He’d once caught me ogling her and asked me to stop. His bulldog nose was less than an inch from my face when he asked, and his breath was as frightening as his size, which I only realized in retrospect because the oral hygiene of one’s executioner is never a primary concern at the exact moment of one’s execution. But Praline, nonetheless, had the honor of initiating my midlife crisis with her blousy shirts, so I gave her the respect she deserved by ogling her in the absence of her freakishly oversized husband.

“What are you two reprobates up to?” she asked, setting beers in front of us and buttoning her shirt up to the top button. Ludie looked confused, as usual, but of course I knew what reprobate meant — I’ve heard it all my life.

“I’m looking for a woman to have a midlife crisis with, like Ed,” I told her. After a moment I thoughtfully added, “But not you, of course.” She eased her hand out from under the bar where she kept the baseball bat. “Ludie’s going to be my wingman,” I said.

She looked at Ludie out of the tops of her eyes. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. He probably didn’t know what a wingman was either.

“Does Prudy know about this, or are you going to surprise her?” Praline asked.

“I told her this morning,” I said. “She’s pretty broke up. She started cleaning the garage, poor thing. Typical transference behavior.”

“Uh-huh,” Praline said, “she’s probably up there transferencing around for that shotgun you never returned to Stark Haney.”

“No,” I explained patiently, “she’s taking the whole thing very psychologically─”

“Philosophically,” she interrupted.

“Whatever,” I said. “She’s transferring her pain onto the garage. I hate it for her, I don’t mean to hurt her but this just happens to men sometimes. There’s nothing I can do. It has to run its natural course.”

“Well, keep it up,” Praline said, “and she’s going to transfer some of her pain onto you.”

Everybody thinks they’re a developmental philosopher. We sipped our beers for a while, and finally Ludie, in a rare moment of clarity and insight, said, “You know what? If you’re actually going to go through with this suicidal foolishness, you can do your midlife crisis chick hunting right here. Tonight’s Ladies’ Night.”

For a slow guy he was actually getting the hang of the wingman thing pretty well.

Five hours and 12 beers later, the ladies started filtering in for Ladies’ Night. Soon a tall, sweltering brunette came in with a lady friend that was probably an Olympic bodybuilder, obviously chosen for what Ladies’ Night people call contrast. They headed for a table by the coat rack.

I nudged Ludie. “There. Over there. That’s the one,” I whispered. “No ring, hungry look in her eyes; she’s scanning the room like a cougar at a watering hole, that’s my midlife crisis woman.”

“She’d crush you like a paper cup,” Ludie laughed.

“Not her, knucklehead, the tall brunette.”

Ludie eyed the brunette appreciatively, like a seasoned wingman. “Why don’t you just call the palace and see if Princess Kate is single yet? Be easier.”

It was clear that I would have to show him how this was done. Beer in hand, I sauntered casually toward their table. I caught the edge of the tile and Ludie came over and helped me off the floor.

“Nice saunter,” he said.

I finished my casual saunter without further incident and reached the table just as the ladies were taking off their coats.

“Hi, my name’s Dave,” I crooned. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before. I certainly couldn’t forget a beautiful woman like you.”

The brunette reached over and hung her coat on my shoulder. I heard a cackle from Ludie in the background and almost had to laugh myself. It sometimes amuses me what lengths women will go to when smitten this way. They simply don’t know how to react to romantic charms like mine, so they pretend to ignore them. It’s sort of an escape hatch for their egos I guess.

I sat down beside her.

“I just had to come over and introduce myself,” I continued duskily, “before any of these other Neanderthals start slobbering all over you.” I motioned casually toward the rest of the bar. “It’s the least I can do for a beautiful damsel such as yourself.” I smiled my most charming smile.

She stubbed her cigarette out on the back of my hand without looking.

“It’s a curse,” I explained as Praline bandaged my hand. “Women just don’t know how to act around a guy like me. It’s as though they’ve never seen a real man before. I don’t blame them really. They’d have to bury themselves in romance novels for years to understand how to react to my virile magnetism.”

“They’d have to bury themselves in something,” Praline said, “but a romance novel wasn’t my first guess.”

And so it went all evening — beautiful woman after beautiful woman, tortured by desire yet unable to fortify her brittle psyche in the presence of my charms. I had to laugh at my own misfortune for being such an inaccessible ideal, and wondered if Fabio had this problem, too. Finally I resigned myself to my fate.

“I’m just going to have to settle for a Corvette for my midlife crisis,” I told Ludie. “These women just don’t know what to do around a man like me.”

“I can see that,” Ludie nodded. “You’ll probably have to settle for a floating Corvette though; you spent all your savings and Prudy’s euchre money on that bass boat last summer.”

He had a point.

“Well then, I’ll just paint the boat red and cruise the bars at the marina for a midlife crisis,” I told him.

“Just red above the water,” Ludie said. “You sold the trailer to buy Dorn Ferguson’s generator for that big deck job. Remember?”

“Well, nobody ever sees what’s below the water line anyway,” I said.

“Lucky for you,” Ludie said, whatever that meant.

I paid my tab and walked home. On the way I saw Ed Ferlacher dash past, his gold dog chain waving behind him like a scarf; probably either chasing or being chased by the blonde. I actually envied him the brutish inelegance that allowed women not to feel inadequate in his presence.

A minute later, his wife, Eileen, lumbered by waving what looked like a railroad tie, and I thought about Prudy at home, probably crying her eyes out. Philosophical psychology is a cruel thing.

When I got home, Prudy was sitting up in bed reading, banishing her torment. I undressed silently, stubbing my toe on the dresser, and limped quietly to the bed. I laid my hand reassuringly on her arm.

“I’ve decided to spare you the anguish of another woman,” I said.

“Okay.”

“I don’t want a thing like that to tear you to pieces.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I don’t want you to have to suffer that kind of philosophical agony.”

“Psychological,” she said, choking back her tears. “And agony is walking into that cesspit you call a garage. I’m not anguished about women; women don’t talk to you.”

“It’s a curse I share with Fabio,” I said. “I know how much it hurts you, but it’s a thing that men just─”

“No ponytail,” she said.

“What?”

“You can do your crisis thing,” she said, “but no ponytail. And no diamond ear studs either. You’ve pierced yourself enough all these years, and I’m tired of patching you up.”

I was silent for a moment, letting her compose her grief. Finally I said, “I’m going to paint the boat red and cruise the bars at the marina for my midlife crisis.”

She turned her light off to hide the tears. “Well, while you’re out there, you can go ahead and take back that shotgun you borrowed from Stark Haney,” she said, pulling the covers up around her chin. “I don’t think we’re going to need it now.”