Typical Day

Have you ever wondered what grumpy old men do all day? I would hope not! Surely you have more important things to wonder about. If you do wonder about this, then you will make a great grumpy old man or old woman someday.

Since, you don’t wonder, I’ll tell you. I get up early - very early. That comes from all those years of having to get up early to go to work. My breakfast always includes bacon because it is not good for you and I am determined to buck the food Nazi’s.

I read part of the newspaper in the morning and the rest at night. My blood pressure won’t allow me to read it all at one time. I read the comics first because I know that after that, nothing else is going to make any sense at all.

Next comes a fun filled action packed day with doing whatever it is that someone else wants me to do. Whatever happened to, "when you retire you can do whatever you want to?" I don’t even remember what it was I wanted to do when I retired.

There are literally a million things I could be doing, but I don’t want to. These things include a lot of housework and minor repairs. My attitude is that if I wait long enough, the repairs will become major and I will hire someone to do them. And, there’s always the chance that they will just go away.

With email, news sites and just browsing, I can spend hours on the computer. There’s usually a laugh or two on the news sites. There is my never ending battle with the phone company. Actually that could be classified as a full time job. I have 17 pages of documentation and four letters to the CEO about the problems I have with them in the past two years. I’m not sure how many employees the phone company has, about a million I think, but I am on a first name basis with most of them.

Of course sometime during the day, I have to take a nap. It took me awhile to learn to do this. All my friends take a nap so I have to. It’s in the fine print for being retired.

Between shopping, mopping and going all the way out to the mail box, my days are pretty busy. In fact, I have to maintain a calendar to see what I am doing next. There’s the monthly coffee with my friend from work and the retiree club.

As you can see, it is necessary to pace yourself in retirement. Evenings are spent watching a TV program while my financial controller sleeps on the couch.

I go to bed early. I have to get up early. I just wish I knew why.

PMO
©2011