Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 25, 1994 TAG: 9405250074
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I guess the American Association for Retired Persons just hasn't heard about this.
My latest research into the debasement of those of us who are about to become actuarial statistics concerns a warranty form for a product I won't mention by name, but which may become apparent to careful readers.
There were these questions that made me feel I'm no longer a part of the cultural dynamics of this country. ("Cultural dynamics." I just made that up, but it does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?)
The questions asked about our future plans, and we found we don't have any.
Talk about hanging your cleats up, surrendering your car keys, donating your knit shorts to charity and selling the lawn mower.
We're not going to get married again, and we've already had three children - that is to say the greatest station wagon drive of them all had three children.
We aren't planning to buy a new house - unless the next ice storm finishes the one we already have.
We are not planning to move again unless the above happens, and we don't plan any remodeling. We have never remodeled - unless you count the time we had to have a new lavatory and commode installed in the smallest master bedroom bath in the history of American suburbia.
Either this bathroom was supposed to have been a closet in which a drunken plumber inadvertently put a bathtub, or it was built for extremely small persons.
There is the chance that we will move to the Bide-A-Wee Golden Hind Retirement Center - some time prior to moving, of course, to the Other Side.
There's no chance of changing jobs again. The last time I did this was in 1954 - when the chances of going Over There seemed very remote.
I'm already in a state of semi-retirement, and unless Social Security starts paying megabucks - say, maybe, five times more - I doubt we'll be buying a vacation home.
And I'm pretty sure we've moved the last kid from a crib to a bed.
I guess I don't really think these people are trying to hurt us, but I wish they would come up with some logical questions about our future.
Like, when we expect to start buying Ben-Gay arthritic rub by the case.
by CNB