Man of the House: All aboard, back-seat drivers

You know my favorite drinking glass? The skull of a fallen enemy. I buy them in sets of eight.

I mention this because it’s so difficult to find the right gift. Another thing I’d like for Christmas is brain surgery. A recent MRI found that my brain rests in what medical experts call “the missionary position,” toes to the ceiling, in the laziest cranial pose a brain can assume. They never explained why my brain had toes. Or why it was wearing socks.

“I really have a brain?” I asked, “because for years …”

“Look here,” the doc said, pointing to the scan. “Little socks.”

So, yeah, I’d like to have some brain work done. Who wouldn’t? My backward view of things might suddenly improve — though lining up a surgical team during the holidays has its challenges. Chair No. 4 at Vail seems the logical choice.

As if Christmas isn’t punishment enough, our family also has two December birthdays to celebrate — first for the little guy (my youngest son), then for a distant relative (my wife).

Little boys are easy to buy for. In this case, I’ll buy him a can of air freshener. His favorite sport lately is to stand in the middle of the bathroom and fire the air freshener in concentric circles till his mother hollers, “ENOUGH WITH THE AIR FRESHENER!” at which point he stops, then starts up five seconds later.

It was the maddest I’ve seen his mother since his giggly impression, a few hours earlier, of a woman giving birth. I agreed with her that it could’ve used more nuance.

“Did you have to sing?” I asked him.

“Yeah, Dad.”

“What do you know about babies?” I asked.

“I was there,” he insisted.

For that, I had no answer.

My wife, Posh, is more difficult to buy for, which is frustrating. She is such an accomplished shopper herself that Target named a store after her.

Now, the obvious gift for Posh would be a winery, for what else do you get a woman with four kids?

In lieu of that, driving lessons would be the next appropriate thing.

Of course, irony upon irony, she thinks I’m the one who needs the driving lessons. To my mind, I am the world’s greatest driver.

The other day, we took a little car trip across town, to grab dinner with the lovely and patient older daughter.

As I drove, Posh and the kids critiqued my driving. They appear not to have heard that I am the world’s greatest driver. Either I was tailgating or I was leaving too many gaps; that was the gist of their complaints.

In L.A. of course, if you leave more than a car length in front of you, another driver will cut in. So you ease back a bit, because one of the worst things you can do in heavy traffic is follow too closely. Boom, someone else darts in.

“You drive too fast, Dad,” added the little girl, back from college for the long weekend.

Like everybody else, I think I drive at the perfect speed. I weigh road conditions, traffic, and then proceed at the usual flow of an L.A. freeway — 3 mph.

By the way, turns out there is more to Los Angeles than I ever thought. In fact, it extends all the way to the Pacific Ocean, which is accessible from other parts of L.A. in less than a day.

Who knew? In fact, by the sea itself, there is the magic kingdom of Santa Monica. Not only is it one of the last bastions of communism in the world, it is also a fine place to have dinner. Believe me, if this is communism, sign me up.

The lovely and patient daughter now lives here, along with aspiring actors, comedians, game-show hosts and screenwriters. Essentially, it is like high school for people in their 20s and 30s.

Young in spirit, I happen to love Santa Monica because on Tuesday nights they have these food trucks (I guess that’s where the communism comes in). The trucks set up next to this great Victorian home/lounge, straight out of South Carolina. Lights drape the trees like Spanish moss. Real angels schlep drinks on the big patio.

There, we dined on bowls of chowder and $11 sandwiches stuffed with lobster. Brain food.

It was an especially sweet evening — quirky, interesting, beautiful — and well worth the driving lessons I suffered the whole sloggy way.

In fact, for Christmas, would bejeweled little Santa Monica be too much to ask? I’d wear it like a mobster’s watch.

chris.erskine@latimes.com

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