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Lord Help Me, I want to buy a Cadillac

By Bill Zahren
(Posted 085/19/03)

Just when I thought a $4,000 in-ground sprinkler system for the lawn was my biggest potential mid-life crisis expenditure, Trinity sent me a sign: buy a Cadillac.

A year ago my "dream gift" was an in-ground lawn sprinkler system to save me the time and pain of moving the damn hose around and save water through more accurate irrigation. Extravagant yet practical. I figured it would pay for itself in 10 years. But then I turned 39 ½ and realized that fantasizing over in-ground sprinklers is OK, if you’re 74 years old.

But when your life hits half time, you start to think, screw the sprinklers, Sparky. Now I’m more excited by something that will travel the 2 ½-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 39 seconds than seeing sprinklers sprout from the lawn.

And that ties perfectly into my theory on what causes the male mid-life crisis. It’s not, I think, an effort to recapture our fading youth. I do not want to go back to my 20s when I made about $4 an hour and worked 50-hour weeks and lived in a one-bedroom basement apartment with the Missus. Pretty sure the Missus doesn’t want to go back there either.

I’d rather stay here in my very late 30s in the tony West Des Moines suburb with all my stuff. No, a mid-life crisis is caused by rebellion against being practical all the damn time. After 20 solid years of being dutiful husbands and fathers, fixating on energy efficiency, worrying about the growth rate of the college funds and stressing out that our 401(k)s are (horror of horrors) out of balance, we just want to do something irresponsible, like drive a car that goes 226 mph.

Especially if you haven’t seen the north side of 90 mph since high school. My driving life (even in high school) has been filled with sensible, affordable, second-hand, boring cars. My biggest flirtation with racy vehicle impracticality was a 1989 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme two-door with back seats obviously designed for gnomes. I was a wild man back then. It was almost as crazy as the time I bought a brand new 1986 Ford Tempo. Now THAT was a hot ride.

So, I want to drive an open-wheeled, Indy racecar, preferably to and from work. But, who am I fooling? Pretty sure my fav Indy Car drivers Sarah Fisher and Robbie Buhl aren’t going to toss me the keys any time soon. Because I’d drive it straight into the turn-four wall and be dead before the tires stopped bouncing.

And, an Indy car doesn’t have any cup holders, stereo, heat or air conditioning or power steering. Driving it down the interstate at a conservative 191 mph while holding the Starbucks large dark roast would be a bitch. Although traveling the 300 miles from my West Des Moines house to my hometown of tony Lake Park, Iowa, in about 1 hour and 20 minutes wouldn’t suck.

So then, naturally, I started thinking motorcycle. One of those crotch rockets that you ride in the same position you assume for a prostate exam. A Ducati motorcycle. Why? Because Trinity (played remarkably by the buff Carrie-Anne Moss) drove a Ducati in the movie Matrix: Reloaded.

Note to the Ducati marketing department: Whatever you paid to get your product used in the Matrix Reloaded was a great investment. The look was working for Carrie Anne. Black leather, shades, boots, blue smoke rolling off the back tire as she rescued some little dude from the bad guys -- striking. Between us, anything that Trinity straddles is going to get major male attention, ‘kay? You probably sold thousands of bikes because of that five-minute movie scene.

But, the Ducati is out. Sure, I’d be The Man on it, but what’s more pathetic than a 40-year-old on a crotch rocket motorcycle? That screams "mid-life desperation," even at 92 mph.

So the Indy car is impossible. The Ducati is too pathetic. I’ve settled on the Cadillac CTS.

Why? Because Trinity also drives a CTS in the movie in the same scene as the Ducati! And, besides, the CTS is rakish with "chiseled planes and crisp edges" according to the brochure I have right here. Zero to 60 in 6.9 seconds. Its ragin’ 3.2 liter, 220-hp V6 tops 90 mph in the standing quarter mile.

And, since Cadillac is the Official Extravagant Car of the AARP, I’m acting my age AND doing something irresponsible. Win-win!

The only, teensy drawback is that the CTS costs $34,000.

Yeah, yeah. I know. 34 grand. But, I gotta say, I’m seriously sick of driving around in my current 1995 Ford Flaccidmobile with 112,000 miles and 4 cylinders (zero to 60 in 21 minutes). Oh, it’s been very reliable. Very sensible. Good gas mileage. Low insurance. Blah, blah, blah. If Trinity saw my car, she’d pull out her (very large) gun and shoot it six times in the hood.

Plus, you can’t swing a dead cat in my neighborhood without hitting some kind of vehicle that costs $35,000 or better. When walking the dog a few blocks west of my house, I see Lexuses (Lexi?), tons of BMWs, destroyer-class SUVs, Mercedes, Audis, Volvos.

So you get to thinking, "Hey, what about me?" Sure, that $600-a-month car payment would be a little steep, but I got little if any credit card debt. Why not jump in and stimulate the economy? The government can be $450 billion in the hole, why can’t I run a deficit and drive a kicking car? The kids can just get loans to go to college. G.M. and G.W. will both love me.

So I got that Caddy brochure out, noted the name and address of the dealer nearest me and, next week ...

I’m going to look at the brochure again! That’s right, I’ll be reading it and maybe cruising the Cadillac Web site! By God, I’m gonna have me one of them fancy CTS cars one day ... next decade. Maybe. After two or three other guys have owned it. Right after the used Honda Civic I buy next dies of old age.

Man, would I look good in the CTS. Not as good as Trinity, of course, but striking nonetheless. Or with a leg over the Ducati, the Mrs. perched on the back in her shiny black leather and shades, weaving through traffic (what there is of it in Iowa) on the interstate before doing a wheelie past the state patrol troopers.

Hey, do me a favor and hold that thought. I gotta go move the hose-connected sprinkler and put the minivan in the garage. Anybody know the name of a good in-ground sprinkler guy?

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