Riding in cars with boys

Merle is there. He has it. He has it BAD.

At what age is it considered normal to suffer the mid-life crisis? If it truly is to happen at mid-life, we would have dodged the bullet by now, if we are to believe the life expectancy algorithms for males in the US.

But here we are, on the “backside of middle age” and he is having a full-blown mid-life crisis.

At least that’s what I say.

He would disagree.

Isn’t denial a classic symptom?

Of course it is.

Merle has a very long commute to the job of his dreams. He has worked approximately 70 miles from our home for about one year.

Yes, a 140 mile per day commute. We live in the NW exurbs. His job is in the SE suburbs. He must drive through the city, hitting the bad traffic on both ends of the commute. There is no public transportation option.

He has scheduled his hours to leave very early in the morning and hopefully return home mid-afternoon, ahead of the afternoon rush hour.

But it is still a long drive each way, every day.

He is currently driving a car with over 250,000 miles on it.  It is a very nice car, still in good condition. But it obviously must be replaced.

You can see where this is going, right?

This is an example of the car that he drives now.

Ours is maroon rather than silver. (When he bought this car, he was a bit worried that the maroon color was a bit too flashy for me.)

But THIS is what he wants:

Yes, a Porsche Boxster. In yellow.

He is willing to buy it used.

He has been online, looking at the used car ads. He is obsessed. He found a car like this a few weeks ago. I pointed out the practical issues.

—We live in a place with snow on the ground for 8 months of each year. It is not a winter-friendly car.

—Our garage can barely house 2 vehicles. We already have two parked on the driveway.

—Because he can’t drive the car in the winter, we would have to have another car for his winter commute.

—The winter car would have to be parked on the driveway.

—The insurance alone would take almost all of our income.

—He sits in traffic for a good portion of his commute, wouldn’t it kill him to just sit there rather than driving?

—How much more stereotypical can you get?

Then he began to tick off the positives:

—We could take off for long weekends in a fun little car. (Yeah, because he wants this for us!)

—It looks really cool.

—It’s a sportscar.

—It goes REALLY fast.

—He’s always wanted another sports car. He had a Corvette when he was in high school and has always regretted selling it.

—Did I mention that it looks really cool and it drives really FAST?

—Oh, and he spends an awful lot of time in a car every day, so he should have a car that he really loves.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think that he deserves to have a nice car. He does spend a lot of time in a car every day. But I am more of the understated “classy” over the in-your face “flashy” mindset. This is one of the biggest differences between us.

A friend at work who thinks that Merle’s idea is awesome-oh yeah, the friend is a guy-sent me an email with a possible middle ground:

Yeah, thanks. That helps.

When this friend heard me laughing when I opened the email, he told me that I would look great in that car.

Really? How great can someone look if they are not able to fit into or get themselves out of a fancy sportscar? Or if they are not able to afford the gas to drive it?

All of that aside, I have just one question for Merle that has not yet been answered.

“What do I get to buy that is as extravagant, expensive and impractical for myself?”

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