Smugly, I point out that I got around by bicycle faster than the traffic today. People, if you can’t drive, you should not get steamed when nobody else can either. Aventura Mall has a single theme for their kiosks. None of them sell anything useful. Stuffed toys for $35 a pop, anyone?On the way home, I read a series of articles concerning retirement. I’ve been planning my own retirement since I was 24. Only in the past three years do I have any experience at it. I decided to see if the authors had changed anything. The answer is no, but something is drastically wrong with the notion that the average person needs $2,000,000 to retire and have a decent life. That simply cannot be true, or most people would never retire. The first thing I noticed is said books are written by mutual fund managers.
Instead, I ran the numbers of known facts that would affect the retirement here in Florida. It just does not match the published material. No way will I require $800 per month for “dining out” nor do I have any intention of spending $10,000 per year on “gifts and donations”. This ain’t the Ford Foundation. The calculations of the so-called experts are completely out of whack with proven reality. Their premise is to “preserve your lifestyle” but quite frankly, I want my retirement lifestyle to simplify things. What are they talking about that you need an annual income of $100,000 to retire? It just isn’t so.
I am already considerably better off than when I worked all week by merely being able to avoid the incidentals of work. While H.D. Thoreau is a little too rustic for me, he does have some revealing thoughts on people who work their entire lives just to retire. My thinking has changed and today I hope I never retire. Retirement ain’t worth the trouble it takes. Put another way, if you are a boring jerk with no life or hobbies today, retirement is not going to change any of that. But you will feel right at home at Starbucks.
Who remembers Nadia? The gorgeous, the gorgeous, did I say gorgeous babe from the Thrift who got a job at the fancy country club. She called today. Okay, guys, remember that movie about Van Helsing(?) who prevents Dracula from capturing Frankenstien (yes, it is a real movie)? Think of the brunette babe in that movie with those incredible foundation garments. Yep, except our Nadia has all that for real. By coincidence, she is also Hungarian. I see I’ve perked up a few ears. Let me put it this way. I am telling you for an unexaggerated fact that if you lined up the world’s ten thousand most beautiful women, she would be among them.
Nadia needs more computer advertising done and in exchange she has got a little something for me. I hear a few of you wondering why I’m so thrilled to hear from a happily married woman. That’s easy to explain. She’s got a beautiful little box and she says tomorrow I can look at it. If it works properly, I can borrow it to tape my show this Friday.
Later, work is still new enough that I can mention it with novelty. A blonde lady co-worker strikes up a conversation with me. What is wrong with this picture? Okay, she is shacked up with an army dude, both semi-employed. They are apparently living in a motorcycle trailer because their house failed inspection and was condemned. She has been eating canned Ravioli for a few days. She can’t get welfare because she is white, under 50 and has no children. So basically, she had to get a job. Isn’t that just something? There’s more.
Some famous drug bust occurred in Miami around 1981. In Miami fashion, a baby girl was dragged 92-1/2 feet by a car. It was her and she has ½ an elbow left to prove it. She also has a front tooth knocked out by the boyfriend and the replacement “cost twenty-three hundred dollars”. It is her nicest although too bad she can’t eat with it installed, really. Normally I have no pity for married women (they didn’t ask me about their choices) and as long as they are still with the guy, I don’t feel responsible for anything that happens to them. Tomorrow I’ll bring her a batch of the homemade chicken rice with spiced pork and my special mandarin orange sweet and sour sauce I made this morning. I froze up lots of extra.
I sold zilch today, the whole office was quiet all night. The closers have the theory that America’s IQ drops to 50 after 8:00 PM. They are probably not that far off. I lost my one sale today when the guy went ballistic saying he didn’t know I was going to put it on his credit card. We are still unsure how he missed giving me his name as it appears, the card number, CVV code and expiry date. What? It’s that three digit code on the back of the card you use for telephone verification.
I am going to cook (record over with blanks) most of the video tapes from the Hippie era. He has called a few times over the years, but never offered any money or assistance, possibly because he has no idea how much technical work is involved, not to mention the expense of driving out there and setting up the cameras. It will be a bit of a pity to also destroy the tapes of Brian Khe San and that Danny guy, but they are both also very Hippie-like in their stinginess. The blank tapes wasted on that crowd alone are worth over $80 I’ll never see again. But unlike some people, I will soon have a demo.
