I decided to let my remaining hair grow a lot longer than it normally does, and someone suggested I "must be in a mid-life crisis." Well, yeah! I’ve been in a mid-life crisis for at least 12 years now, and I have no intention of ending it anytime soon.

You see, I don’t know how long I’m going to live, so I really have no idea when "mid-life" starts. I don’t want to miss this classic opportunity for male over-indulgence, so I’m going to take a very liberal stance and make the math work in my favor, for a change.

I’ll explain my technique since you might want to try this yourself.

A mid-life crisis can be a great excuse for a new boat, sports car, hobby or other temptation, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. Now, if you’re considering using your mid-life crisis for something unsavory, you’re reading the wrong column. Turn to the religion section and start reading...now.

Here’s my take on mid-life math. When I was a teen, I was a know-it-all smart-tail. It’s a wonder some teacher or adult didn’t do me in when I was 14. That would have placed my mid-life at age 7. So we’ll use that as the lower bound of the mid-life estimate. But I didn’t get a shovel upside my head. I outgrew my teen years, and now science is working on tricks to keep me alive until I’m 120 years old. Half of 120 is 60. So we’ll set that as the upper end of mid-life. That means that my "possible" mid-life crisis is due somewhere between age 7 and 60. Well, I didn’t even think of a mid-life crisis until I was in my 40s. That means I’m owed a few decades and some change, if we’re going to be fair about this whole thing. Given my late start, I plan to work a mid-life crisis angle until I’m about 87 years old.

Sports cars, ponytails, new guitars, a fast boat — the possibilities are endless! And we can thank basic mathematics for this insight. To calculate your own mid-life crisis range, just use my technique. And if you were a rotten little kid who lived on the edge, you might be able to claim several extra decades of mid-life decadence. Just remember to take care of yourself in old age or the whole deal falls apart.

David McCoy, a notorious storyteller and proud Yellow Jacket, lives in Covington and can be reached at davmccoy@bellsouth.net.