Getting old can be wonderful. It certainly beats the alternative. We were looking forward to David's retirement after 35 years with one company and 42 years of marriage. I know David was anyway. Me, I wasn't so sure. I was stuck in my ways of doing things and being semiindependent with him away half the time. Would he expect me to make three meals a day? Be at his beck and call? Do things on his schedule after I was so used to doing things my way? It was a very big adjustment and took some time getting used to but we were humming along until the danged old government drones insisted on sticking their busy-body noses into our business and ruining everything.
I would like to know why our benevolent government feels the need to bother us senior citizens. We've worked hard all our lives and deserve to be left alone with any monies we've managed to hang on to after playing the lottery each week. Thankfully, that's not our only retirement plan David worked for a company that knew you just can't give rednecks their money all at once. We're liable to use it to buy bright, shiny objects and, of course, lottery tickets.
Anyway, any money we've managed to keep from the money-grubbing revenuers (whom I'll refer to as the MGRs) should be ours to spend as we see fit, don't y'all agree? They always find a way to take it when you earn it and take it again when you try to save it.
I think we've earned the right to live our lives as we see fit. But NO, says the government. We (the government) don't think you're entitled to keep all the money you've worked so hard for. We want a cut.
This year, David turns this magical (to the MGRs), arbitrary age where the MGRs insist we have to start taking money out of an account that we've saved for over 40 years or else they will divest the money for us and take an even larger share than I feel they are entitled to (none).
I knew we were in trouble when he retired and we were immediately inundated with people demanding we make a decision RIGHT NOW on signing up for Social Security and Medicare and asking 'What are you going to do with your money?' I don't do well when I feel I'm being pressured into making any decision that will impact the rest of my life. I can't even make a decision that impacts what I'll be eating for supper. Don't they know that I am the Queen of Procrastination and must take many, many weeks, or months even, to make the simplest decision? Apparently not since they cared not one whit that they were driving me nuts.
Every stinkin' day David and I would get tons of mail asking what Medicare plan are we signing up for? Are we going to purchase a supplement? Which supplement? This one will pay for this but not for that. Wait! You'll need a separate one for pharmaceuticals. While we've got you flustered, are you interested in walk-in tubs, threelegged canes, mobility scooters, phones with buttons big enough to be seen from space, etc? We don't want any of their junk. LEAVE US ALONE, I'd shout if I thought it'd make any difference. But I know it wouldn't.
David and I have come up with a plan to get back at the money-grubbers. We're going to spend it. That'll show 'em. Har! Har! We purchased our first gas-guzzling sport utility vehicle the size of a small ocean liner.
Oh, wait a minute. Maybe David's company was right all along. We do like anything that is shiny, new and technologically challenging. We have spent the last two days sitting in our garage in our new car trying to figure out how everything works. I spent a couple of hours programming all my favorite stations into the radio only to have them disappear the next time I got in the car.Does that purchase qualify for a bright shiny object? What the heck! So I did it again...and again. If I have to do it one more time, I'm taking the whole dang car back. I hope this sends a message to the MGRs. Do not mess with us senior citizens. We didn't get this dang old being stupid.