The newly retired, if you don’t watch them, will squander much of their Final Expenses years watching YouTube films: Retirement Doesn’t Suck All That Bad; Bingo Like the Big Dogs; and my favorite, Cheating at Scrabble—Who’ll Notice? Using bubbly drivel, the print media will contribute budget and travel nuggets that claim inside cabins on cruise ships aren’t the end of the world. They are. And that people live like Kardashians on a Social Security check. They don’t.
Retirees eventually tire of lame how-to and guess-what articles and advance to budget-centric material. Will My Savings Predecease Me? Probably. Unless you win the lottery. Is Your Classmate’s Retirement Income Bigger Than Yours? Remember that dimwit squid from your middle school Science Club? He’s retired in Palm Beach with a hot model and scrapes by on six figures a month while your grocery money tries to keep your Hyundai out of the shop.
Pessimistic writers can depress retirees. Last year, I came across a thought-provoking question: “Will anything good ever happen to you again?” The word “again” discomfits us geezers, and it set my dwindling brain cells a-twitch.
If you’re 88, why ask yourself questions that remind you that time has passed and will continue to fly by? One hopes. I’ve had friends and colleagues die in cemetery quantity; persons I once called close now forget my name—along with their own, usually.
At 88, you must face that the war is lost, but why not continue the battle? Continue to believe that good things can still happen to you. Oh, big promotions and seductive job offers are relics of another time—as are physically demanding trips to places like Machu Picchu and the Galapagos. Tragically, I’ve even given up my dream of climbing Woodall Mountain, which at 806 feet, towers over Iuka as Mississippi’s highest point.
Today’s good things will happen, but mine just won’t involve much fried food and no 5K charity runs. The dewy-lipped Miss Loomis from human resources no longer stops by my office to flirt. She’s an irritable 78 now and walks with a hitch; my office is in my house.
It’s not as if age has handed me a life devoid of interest. No, I’ve got mail. Snail Mail. In a recent week, the mail brought invitations to one lunch, one dinner, and one audience with a local automotive bigwig.
The car czar wanted to offer a hefty sum for my Lincoln Continental—the one I sold months ago. The gala (free) lunch invitation came from Gross Funeral Homes (no kidding) and included a seminar on how to get to the crematorium once you’re no longer able to talk to the van driver. The dinner (also free) came from the funsters at the Bladder and Bowel Institute (even less kidding) who offered timely tips on treating unspeakable problems. This entire invitation cornucopia arrived via the Post Office.
If you think that geezers find entertainment sustenance in their mailboxes only rarely, let me pop that balloon. Two weeks ago, an anonymous letter, unstamped and in a plain white envelope, appeared in our mailbox. A single typed page accused our household of an offense beyond despicable: the writer claimed we owned wind chimes. Imagine.
Wind chimes, as you will—or maybe won’t—agree, are an abomination, as out of place in quiet neighborhoods as a drunk polka band at vesper services. Furthermore, neither I, wife Susan, nor Barnum or Bailey (the cats) have ever owned or operated wind chimes.
True, we have purchased homes that included wind chimes, but we unceremoniously ripped them out and donated them to a tinnitus charity. We might have given them to a despised relative at Christmas, but we had none of those so we chose charity.
Our unfortunate postal experience is softened, of course, by the side-dish of self-righteous warmth that accompanies every accusation of transgressions that you would never, ever, consider. Such as self-immolation. Or writing anonymous letters.
My reaction to the letter would be less intense had the masked writer not suggested that, if I liked wind chimes I should bring them indoors and use a breezy fan to activate the noise. I’m still examining this anti-chime troll’s commission of a federal crime on my property. Unauthorized use of a US Mail box ($5,000. Look it up.)
Wonder if he knows that. Wonder if he’s ever met a federal postal inspector?
William Jeanes, former Northsider, gets his mail in Arkansas.
