The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Retired Person

Oh hi. No, I'm done with appointments--at Christmas they don't much care for the future beyond how long it's going to take to get to the airport, ski hill or shopping mall. Want a shot? Here--I don't normally keep a bottle in here, of course, but 'tis the season.

Me? Not a whole lot, I guess. I mean, the kids will do the obligatory thing on the 26th or maybe the 27th--we haven't pinned that down yet. Son's got to work apparently so he can't do more than maybe a lunch, he says. Daughter wonders if I'd be hurt if she accepted her boyfriend's offer to go with his family to Aspen. Probably best to go along with it than have her come over and sulk.

Presents? I give gift certificates--music stores mostly. What about you? Really--just three months? I didn't realize you weren't even going to finish out the school year. Me? No, I just look like I should be close to packing it in. Must be the fluorescent lights in here--that or the smokes and the Jack Daniels. Sorry--don't mean to get maudlin.

Really? You want me to give you my career advice on retirement? I never really thought anyone would ever ask that. I usually tell most of the kids to expect to be dead or bankrupt by 60--saves them coming back and saying I built up their hopes, you know? Easiest not to expect much, I've learned--then you don't end up disappointed.

So--retirement, huh? Well, you're what--56? Wow--if I hadn't gotten divorced I'd probably be able to go at 58. Now my bank account says that isn't in the cards. Anyway, 'nough about me.

So, you'll probably have all these great ideas about travel and adventure, right? But how old's your wife--she retiring? Aha--just as I thought. So you'll retire and want to get moving on with the adventures, but she still has the workaday thing to do, so you'll go play golf and putter around the garden while she resents you as she has to get up and go into her daily grind.

Eventually she'll get her three weeks vacation and you'll suggest something exotic--like backpacking in the Himilayas--but she'll just want a beach, a chair and a pitcher of margaritas. You'll settle for something in between--a cruise that includes "the best of both" and delivers little more than intestinal parasites that leave you in the fetal position for two weeks.

She goes back to work and you get bored, so you take her advice and volunteer for a variety of good causes--maybe the soup kitchen, or reading for the blind, or delivering meals to shut-ins. You won't just make it a once a week gig; you'll throw yourself into it wholeheartedly, and soon you have an entire little social world with the other volunteers, and your wife points out that you might have well have just kept on working. You explain it's all about the satisfaction of making a difference in the world, but her eyes have glazed over by that point in the conversation.

Eventually she retires and you start retirement in earnest. You buy the big motor home you'd always wanted--fully decked out with satellite t.v. and a jacuzzi tub. Of course it costs more to fill it with gas and pay for campsite rentals than it would have cost you to fly around to four star hotels, but you delude yourself into thinking you're getting in touch with the great outdoors. In fact you're simply learning how long small town garages can milk repair jobs while you are stuck in a cockroach-infested motel eating barely digestible meals at the local greasy spoon.

One day when you're struggling to get the fifth wheel unhooked from the truck you strain your back. You end up in hospital for a few days, and have to hire someone to drive the camper back while you and your wife fly home. That ends your camping days.

You try going back to the volunteering, but the back problems limit your ability to be much help, and you give it up. Meanwhile, now your wife is showing the same restlessness you felt when you first retired, and she directs her energy into her garden, soon winning prizes at local produce fairs with her vegetables and flowers. You become a fixture in your recliner, and watch your waistline grow as you wear the numbers off the t.v. remote.

Your wife becomes more and more involved in her gardening club, and soon is heading off too conventions all over the country. You notice she doesn't seem to mind too much when you beg off, and you also wonder why the gardening club has so many late weeknight meetings. You're taken by surprise when she files for divorce and shacks up with a man ten years younger.

Hey, but you can still come visit us here, right? You know where the Christmas party is, by the way? Nobody seems to want to tell me.