A charity’s spring fling

MY WIFE RAN off with a silent auction, left me for a charity event she fell in love with, forsaking me, the children, our cozy little house (which used to be a gas station, did I ever mention that?).

One day my wife was around, the next day she wasn’t. When last spotted, she was off gathering gift baskets and collecting donated items for the silent auction. I thought it was a mild obsession, sort of like me. Turned out to be more. So much more.

Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I should’ve been more attentive, picked up on some of the telltale signs. When I think back on it now, it all makes sense -- the late-night phone calls, the 30 e-mails a day to Katie and Lenza, Katrina and Annette.

As time went on, she grew distant and unresponsive, my wife did. The unresponsive stuff I was used to, but she’d never been so distant before. If anything, she’d always hounded me a little too much. Did I appreciate it then? No way.

If you’ve never been to a silent auction, here is how one works. First of all, they’re not that silent. They tend to be boozy little affairs where the money raised is in direct proportion to the amount of liquor being poured.

Besides drinking, the evening centers around a bunch of donated auction items, usually set up on school lunch tables that reek of pickles and mustard no matter how much you scrub them with lye and stuff.

Next to the item is a sheet where you can write in your bid. Auction items include such things as spa weekends, Lakers tickets and dinner at local restaurants, like our favorite Chinese joint, Chow Yuck.

Lord, how I miss those dinners at Chow Yuck -- the dried-out egg rolls, the chow mein with cheese. The kids loved Chow Yuck and so did she.

Chow Yuck is one of those big, noisy, family-friendly places where everything you touch is really sticky, like the back of a stamp. It burns down every three years and reopens in about a week.

The food? Not great, but the chefs at Chow Yuck make up for it by giving you big heaping portions, with extra MSG on the side. We always went home with leftovers, in those plastic foam containers. It stunk up the car for days.

Anyway, it’s one of those little things you miss when your wife leaves you: Food. Sex. Clean laundry.

“When is Mom coming home?” the kids keep asking.

“When she’s ready,” I say.

“She looked sooooo cute in her new capris,” the older daughter says.

As with all love, money was a factor. Spring charity events are incredible money-makers, raising thousands of dollars in some cases, which is more money than I’ll ever make, that’s for sure. To a suburban mom, all that cash can be very seductive.

Plus, I think it’s the camaraderie. You get a bunch of moms together and turn them loose on the community -- begging for donations and nagging for free services -- and you have a dynamic economic force. I think Keynes called it Mom-i-nomics. Or maybe it was Irving Fisher.

You want to erase the federal deficit? Just ask 100 moms to hold a giant silent auction. They’d raise so much money we could buy Cuba and make it the 51st state, which is inevitable, if you ask me. If Hawaii can be a state, why not Cuba? Why not Thailand?

But I digress. Like all great economic systems, there are winners and there are losers. Big losers. In this case, me.

So if you see my wife, please call.

Let me describe her for you now, based on the wedding picture I hold in my hand: She’s about 5 feet tall and barely 100 pounds. Wow, was she hot!

In the wedding picture, she’s got more hair than all the Dixie Chicks combined and these big brown hopeful eyes, though that’s probably the thing about her that’s changed the most.

No longer are her eyes quite as hopeful. They’re a little more leery now, particularly of men with too many promises and not enough resources.

Let’s see, what else. My wife has no tattoos or identifying marks, except for the little hickey I put on her neck in 1982, which has mostly healed now.

It was a heck of a hickey, I don’t mind saying, an inch across and an inch deep -- a shoo-in for the Hickey Hall of Fame.

If you spot this woman, please do not attempt to take her into custody yourself. She is armed and snappy. Instead, alert your local law enforcement officials, who in turn will alert our armed forces.

There will be a small reward. Very small. I think he’s about 4 now.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com. For more columns, see latimes.com/erskine.