Trade Offs & "Being Responsible'

Brewer
Try to find a full spectum light for either you desk at work or home. I had the same SADD problem. Got the light and.....it did really help (going to work when it was dark and coming home when it was dark) but made me feel like I was doing something.

OTOH had dinner last weekend with a number of couples who are serious consumers, still tied to their jobs, McMansions (nice) and vacation homes (nice) and complaining that they don't have any money, can go on their winter vacations. We are on our way to Mexico (nice), and will be taking at least 2 month long trips (nicer still) in the next 14 months. Have your fun, but hang in there!
 
Hey, if you can't go on your "backpacking around Europe" trip, pack the family up and go on a weeklong cruise to some tropical location. Get a tan, thaw out, and cheer up!
 
() said:
I did all this stuff, so if anyone wants to know how it was, just ask ;)

Other than the benefit of getting a dirty little smile on your face when you're daydreaming and remember some bit or other, you didnt miss much.  The downside is missing the rest of your life while pondering what you may have missed.
As Ed Abbey said: "Women: We cannot love them all. But we must try." So what are you willing to confess?
 
Well I'm kind of a shrinking violet, so I dont know.

Give me a specific category and I'll divulge something. What the heck, an hour before my baby backs are done, baby is tearing up last years yellow pages and looks like he's getting away with something, and another hour for my dvd to transcode...
 
Well, since I invoked ole Ed, tell me us about anything illicit that brings that dirty little smile you were talking about. You can brag, if you wanna!
 
Oh why not. I try to avoid bragging at all times though... ;) These are absolutely true stories.

I never went to college, but I had a near frat-house lifestyle in my early 20's. I rented a huge house and had 5-6 different guys living there over a three year period, about 15 guys in total. Yeah, we had one female 'roommate' for about six months who pretty much worked off her rent in non-monetary activities.

Anyhow, two of the guys, not buddies, just hangers-oners, werent too good about paying the rent on time, so I told them to take a hike. Got marginally ugly, but nothing serious. About a month later, their two now ex-girlfriends show up at the house. I'm pretty suspicious that this is some kind of setup, but what the hell. One was really attractive, the other was just dang pretty. So we're shooting the **** for a while and the prettier one says "Why dont we watch tv or something?". I noted what I was pretty sure they knew, the only tv in the house was in my bedroom. "Yeah, we know that". Sure...why not!

The really sad part is I cant remember either of their names...I think the real pretty one was named Michelle.

Then there was the Great Hospital Travesty of 1983. One of my roommates girlfriends had been sued by her ex for smashing up his car, and he lost. In the area outside the courtroom right after the court rendered its finding, he grabbed her and broke her nose. "Jack" was about 6'5 and about 290lbs, so he was a bit of a handful but me and my roommate "Joe" managed to subdue him until the court guards figured out something was amiss and came to slap some cuffs on him. A few days later "Joes" girlfriend is in the hospital getting her nose fixed, under police protection, and she's pretty wasted on whatever pain killers they're giving her, which is fine because she was a pretty heavy substance user (her dad was in permanent protective custody for ratting out some of his mob friends, nice life to grow up in). So she calls my roommate "Joe" and well, says she's bored and umm...lonely and needs some companionship. Apparently the offer was good because about an hour later we'd broken into the hospital, distracted the police "protection" and "Joe" spent the next 40 minutes or so...errr...comforting his girlfriend to help with her loneliness. Then the cops heard something going on. The classic line of the whole night, which persists to this day: we're in the elevator, one big cop and this one little guy that came up to about the bottom of our rib cages. The big one was pretty cool once they figured out what was going on and they were just going to 'see us out'. The little one was the classic 'little man syndrome' tough guy though and he was going on and on about how much trouble we might end up in. "Joe" at one point looks at him and says "You know what? I think my dick is bigger than you are". The big cop starts laughing his ass off and cant stop. Little cop shuts up.
 
I did a year long college exchange to Hawaii, failed all courses and ended up on academic probation, transferred back in a hurry and got my grades pulled up just in time.

I went to class for 1 week, that's the amount of time it took me to make enough friends in the dorms to be able to party or surf 24 hours a day. Needless to say, I was a bad boy in more ways then one. 3 Ladies found out about each other about a week before I flew back to the mainland for good. Those last few days were spent dodging them and their new Hawaiian-sized "guy" friends. :eek:
We also got an entire dorm floor high on second hand smoke from the biggest gravity bong on earth*, but I'm not really proud of that - waste of good product. Someday I'll have to post some pictures of me from back then, I looked pretty crazy.

More to the point, while I didn't to a lot of cultural enrichment, I definitely partied and lived fast in a place I still think of as paradise for almost a year, and while some things make me smile wistfully, I'm also embarrassed about some of the things I did. If you were able to learn lifes lessons without risking your health, that only makes you a better man than me, IMHO.

....o.k., making love in the moonlight on a Hawaiian beach I definitely do not regret, but otherwise I could take it or leave it at this point. ;)
 
We are rapidly approaching the point where we change the title of this thread to:

"Oh yeah? That's nothing. Lemme tell you what I did!"
 
73ss454 said:
Man, if 36 is mid life what the heck is 57? <gulp>
I tell my kid that I'm not having a midlife crisis until I'm in my 60s.

But I like the idea of having one every 15 years or so just to stay proficient...
 
Nords said:
I tell my kid that I'm not having a midlife crisis until I'm in my 60s.

But I like the idea of having one every 15 years or so just to stay proficient...

Thanks,

That makes me feel better.
 
I think I had one about every 5 years for the past 15. At least that's what my wife says.
 
BearlyWorking said:
I think I had one about every 5 years for the past 15.  At least that's what my wife says.
Maybe she needs one of her own-- she shouldn't knock it until she's tried it?
 
brewer12345 said:
It occurred to me yesterday that I never really had a fun period of youthful irresponsibility. . .
I'm still wondering if that period will ever end for me. :D :D :D
 
Have you ever known anyone that had a REAL midlife crisis? I do, he's going through it now and driving us all crazy and I hope he snaps out of it before he does something really stupid. And it's not like he didn't have his fun in his younger years because we've heard all the stories.
 
Outtahere said:
Have you ever known anyone that had a REAL midlife crisis?

You mean a “REAL” midlife crisis as opposed to an “unreal” one?

Our company CFO, married with two children and in his mid 40’s, began an affair with a 20-something at work. They did a very poor job of keeping their personal business private, and their little fling was “the” subject of conversation around the water cooler. For example, returning from lunch one day I pulled in to the parking garage the same time they did. We arrived at the elevator at the same time, and as I rode up with them it was all I could do to not laugh out loud since her hair was all mussed and they were still breathing heavily. He didn’t pull out of his crisis before crashing, getting a divorce, and destroying his finances to the point of having his Mercedes repossessed from the parking garage. In a desperate effort to save face, he reported it stolen and was really humiliated when the truth came out. He “left the company to seek other opportunities” within a week of that incident.

Growing up is a painful experience.... ;)
 
Real, unreal, whatever you want to call it this man is like that CFO. I don't think he's had the affair yet but he contemplated divorce, that is until I had asked him how much it was going to cost. At first he didn't understand, he was thinking lawyer fees LOL. I then ran down a list of things he would have to divide, sell or just plain give to her, on top of alimoney since she's never worked AND his children hating him the rest of their lives. When we sat down and ran the numbers he paled a little and then announced he was going to buy a motorcycle. This was last year, he didn't divorce but he's still not happy, he can't seem to "find himself", I'm just hoping he doesn't do something to make an ass of himself like your CFO.
 
Outtahere said:
Real, unreal, whatever you want to call it this man is like that CFO.  I don't think he's had the affair yet but he contemplated divorce, that is until I had asked him how much it was going to cost.  At first he didn't understand, he was thinking lawyer fees LOL.  I then ran down a list of things he would have to divide, sell or just plain give to her, on top of alimoney since she's never worked AND his children hating him the rest of their lives.   When we sat down and ran the numbers he paled a little and then announced he was going to buy a motorcycle.  This was last year, he didn't divorce but he's still not happy, he can't seem to "find himself", I'm just hoping he doesn't do something to make an ass of himself like your CFO.

Sometimes living a lie is worse than getting the divorce; been there, done that and have the T-Shirt to prove it. Making a clean break and starting over with a clean slate open up a whole new world sometimes. At least it did for me.

I am 53 and have not had what I would call a Mid Life Crisis. I don't know if I jumped over it or if it has yet to hit me. It for real or is it just a good excuse to indulge yourself while waiting to retire?
 
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