Wishing a Very Merry Midlife Crisis to You and Yours

Welcome to my midlife crisis, brought to you by my wife and three kids, a cat, a dog, and assorted slimy creatures that pass for pets.

Welcome to my crisis, brought to you by a crazy world where nothing ever seems fair. George and John are gone. Who’s next?

That’s right, George and John are gone--half the Beatles--but the entire Rolling Stones are alive and well, which makes you wonder just how random and fickle life can be and that maybe a midlife crisis isn’t so unjustified.

What sane person wouldn’t have a midlife crisis in times like these? If not now, when?

Besides, a good midlife crisis is underrated.

If you work it right, you can turn a midlife crisis into an extended birthday party, complete with gifts. New car. Maybe a Harley.

Some guys get girlfriends, though I’d stick with cars and motorcycles myself. Stay away from people, that’s my advice. For a good midlife crisis, stick with high-priced objects. Closed-end leases. Heavy metal.

Or fiberglass. My buddy Tom just bought a nice ski boat to celebrate his midlife crisis.

And my friend Don has ordered one of those new T-birds, though I fear I won’t live long enough to see this T-bird delivered. I’m pretty sure that Ford’s new Thunderbird, plagued by factory delays, is really a hoax. No one will ever see one.

“When’s the T-Bird get here?” I keep asking Don.

“Pretty soon,” he says.

“Right,” I say, not having the heart to tell him about the hoax. A midlife crisis is a delicate thing. Best not to mess with it too much.

Now, I’ve seen and heard some ugly things in my life.

I’ve heard Christina Aguilera sing “Silent Night” on the car radio, a jittery, ear-splitting rendition that made me consider converting to Judaism right there on the spot, at the corner of Glendale Boulevard and Alvarado Street.

I’ve seen Don Johnson act and seen Shaq shoot a free throw.

I’ve seen Eric Karros slide into second.

None of it was pretty. None of it I’ll soon forget.

But I’ve never seen anyone attempt to raise a person’s life insurance in the middle of a midlife crisis, spoiling all the fun.

My wife--mother of my checkbook, keeper of the kids--recently took advantage of an open-enrollment period to raise my life insurance to some bizarre figure--3 million bucks, according to one of the kids--which has left me feeling valuable and vulnerable all at once.

“For an extra $19, we can get $600,000,” my wife says as she begins filling out the open-enrollment form.

And I say, “Sure, what the heck,” then sneak off to the kitchen to hide the steak knives and the arsenic.

“You sure $600,000 is enough?” she calls from the next room.

“Hey, I’m not a lottery ticket,” I tell her, as she boosts the insurance another 100 grand.

Before my wife is done, I’m worth more than $3 million, but I’d still have to die twice to pay off the MasterCard.

“Great, now I’m George Bailey,” I tell her. “But I need two bridges.”

The kids remind me that I have a lot of good years left, and I remind them that men with kids like them generally live to be only 41, 42 max, what with all the yelling and the demands for money and the fighting over the remote control.

Fights over the remote control have ripped a good 14 years from my life. I lost another five years just in arguments over the kids’ music.

As in, “This rap stuff stinks.”

To which they respond, “You’re such a dad.”

To which I respond, “That’s my job, to be a dad.”

Which makes them say, “Yeah, well, who pays you then?”

Right there, five years off my life. Right there, a midlife crisis.

“Are you sure $3 million is enough?” my wife calls from the next room.

And into this financial and personal morass comes Christmas.

Now, in case you haven’t noticed, all the columnists at The Times are suddenly writing about this Holiday Campaign. Did someone ask us to do it? No way. We were just suddenly taken with this holiday fund and by coincidence, are suddenly all writing about it.

Whatever the reason, I bring it to your attention now. Bombarded as you’ve been with charity requests, I hesitate to bring up yet another.

But get this: Even in recession, many of us seem to be able to buy giant TVs. Even in recession, we bought more cars in October than ever before. In the toughest of times, many of us are fortunate enough to indulge our little whims, midlife and otherwise.

A donation of at least 25 bucks to the Holiday Campaign gets your name in the newspaper. The money goes toward food, clothing and shelter and to assorted programs for children and teenagers. For $25, you can get your name printed for doing something right and good and relatively painless.

People have offered much more to keep their names out of the newspaper, which was my suggestion to the publisher. Charge people not to print their names--the scandal-ridden politicians and the celebrity DUIs. Now there’s a treasure trove. There’s the future.

As always, he never listens. For that reason alone, we should be grateful.

Please give what you can.

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Chris Erskine’s column runs Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.