Shortly after he turned forty, the travelling husband came back from a business trip to New York with a leather belt decorated with colourful beads.
Here we go, I thought, a typical middle-age crisis sign.
I was wrong,! It was more just a moment of an extreme bad taste in accessorises and he soon went back to his boring black belt, long grey socks and rigorously white underwear.

Nearly ten years later, though, the real thing might have arrived.
And I am not talking about his happy colourful socks or the long beard and long hair, that in fairness I am not even sure it’s on him or more on the fact that the barbers are closed since last December.

I’m not even talking about the fact that he’s wearing his hunting gear all the time, as I am sure that the choice of apparel is exclusively related to the fact that the poor man needs to exorcise the sadness of a miserably short hunting season.

And of course I’m not even talking about the ritualistic evening check for new grey hair, as once it will stop when he will come to terms that he is now the father of a nasty teenager daughter and that’s the cause of the sudden strips of grey.

What I’m actually talking about is the obsession with cocktails!!!
Yes, you heard me, cocktails!

“I miss a proper bar made cocktail and I’ll never complain about travelling ever again!” He said.
“Neither will I!” I replied because if he’s the man in crisis I’m the wife of the man in crisis sitting in the house 24/7 bored and suddenly realizing that travelling around Europe sleeping in five stars hotel and eating out in fancy restaurants is not that bad!

Anyway back to the husband, after long dark days, the discovery of domestic soda syphons brought hope and a smile back to his face.
Professionally prepared cocktails in the comfort of your home!!!! Every man’s dream.
Three days later he placed the Amazon order, the syphon was delivered and the drinking cabinet was filled with bottles of Campari and Martini of every shade of color.
Unfortunately all the above were useless without the CO2 cartridges that were supposed to arrive with the syphon but, the order was never processed. Something went wrong at the check out he was told after waiting the cartridges for two weeks.Two weeks of sad looks at the syphon sitting on the counter incapable to perform his job.
The travelling husband’s reaction,as you can imagine, was not the most pleasant, and especially for the poor call centre operator who had to break the news to him and ask him to replace the order.
For the next ten days he then monitored with compulsive devotion, and constant disappointment, every currier that was driving up the road. No sign of the cartridges whatsoever!
This time the poor operator had to explain to a very angry traveling husband that his ordered went through, everything was fine but it was now stack in custom. Thank you, Brexit!

Eventually nearly a month after the initial order, the CO2 cartridges affair came to a positive end and a box of cartridges arrived; and then a second one and a third one.

“How many did you order?”I asked, naively worried about a mistake in quantity.
” Better safe than sorry, love.” The husband answered back.
100 soda syphon cartridges safely stored in the cabinet: Enough to beat even the longest man middle-age crisis, …….unless the urge for pizza takes over: “I really miss a proper pizzeria pizza!” He in fact said the other night while sipping his americano(the cocktail not the coffee).
So what now? Are we ordering a wood oven? Or two ,or three😱

Ah, how simpler it was in the pre-covid era when the worst a middle-age man in crisis could do was to shag a twenty something bimbo!!!!