Retirement Planning

The Vatican called – there’s a job opening that sounds pretty good.  You can work from home, wear slippers and funny hats, and have throngs of people to help.
 
The last guy in the job actually quit, but we don’t know why.  Maybe the gal that runs Yahoo told him he couldn’t work at home anymore.  She’s like Lucy with the football.

Still, if you’re the lucky job holder, you get as much Italian food as you like.  Housing is covered and you’ll have access to paintings, treasures, and jewels from all over the world.  Just don’t ask how they came to have these things in the first place.

You get a car and driver, security detail for life, and the city you’ll live in will actually be its own country with YOU in charge.  It’s like winning the lottery! 

New law – Lollipop Friday!

The job sounds fun, but seems to be held mostly by really old men.  Maybe it’s a second career or one of those “retirement jobs.”  I think the guy that just quit is gonna become a Wal-mart greeter now.  Very friendly from what I hear.

Last week, when discussing retirement with my wife, she said, “After you retire, don’t you want to work the land?”

….

“Work the land?”

“You know, maybe get a cow, a goat, a sheep…”

This is where I apparently get my “judgey” face that starts arguments.  “What would I do with a cow, a goat, and a sheep?”

“I don’t know.  Make artisanal cheeses?  Hasn’t the idea of working the land always appealed to you?”

“Who do think you married?  No, I can honestly say I’ve never dreamed of working the land.”

“Well I want to work the land.”  Now she gets that frowny face that ends arguments.

 ….

Friends, I don’t think my retirement will go well.  My soon-to-be-revealed spectacular mid-life crisis is brewing in the distance like the hordes of orcs from Lord of the Rings, preparing to invade.  I have no imminent plans to retire, but I’ve been fingering the one ring and wondering if I should just put it on and disappear or make the trek to Mordor like a good Hobbit.

Still, I have plenty of work left to do.  There’s the little matter of my meandering manifesto—still have to write that.  I have to complete my screenplay masterpiece, the long anticipated, “Supermodel Astronaut”—though I’m afraid some fifteen year-old studio executive will want to add smooching vampires or zombies and ruin the whole thing.  Shot across the bow:  it ain’t gonna happen, kid. 

Of course, I will simply take my revenge when I inevitably win the Oscar for my original screenplay, “Ninja Leprechauns” or wave around my Pulitzer (in my mind it’s a flag that reads, “Pulitzer") for my hard-hitting novel, “Munchkins Cry, Too,” following the painful abuse and struggles of Hollywood’s mistreated little people.  Spoiler: Glinda was NOT a good witch.

Simply put, I still have too much to do to consider retirement or those go nowhere Vatican job openings.  Though, I’m reminded of the old saying, “Life is like a roll of toilet paper.  The closer you get to the end, the faster it seems to go.”  I think that was either Nietzsche or Shakespeare.  Not sure how much of my roll remains, but I’m determined to use it wisely…. And slowly. 

Then again, maybe I’ll work the land.

 

© 2013, Herb Williams-Dalgart