The Joys of Retirement

Warning.  This blog post is going to cover some of the joys of being retired. For those of you, like me, who are retired, please feel free to read on.  Those of you still in the daily grind, perhaps pause and evaluate before reading further.  I wish to cause no one any undue negative feelings that might arise.  So continue at your own risk.

I will proffer, that if you do read on and do find some small measure of yearning, jealousy, or resentment arise, you can console yourselves that you have a huge joy that is hard to beat. And that is, a steady income and probably good healthcare coverage.  I say probably, because well, the state of healthcare right now is anybody’s guess.

With those disclaimers out of the way, let us proceed.

There are many joys of being retired.  No need to set an alarm, ability to take a nap whenever you want, time to travel, freedom to do whatever you want.  There really are so many joys of being retired, they are too numerous to list here.

But there’s one that absolutely tops the list. 

Being able to shop or run errands on a weekday.  Yup.  You might have thought I’d have gone with sleeping in, or freedom to do whatever you want, but nope.

Because, as I have covered in one of my other blog posts, as we age, we seem to lose patience.  And if you lack patience, or have short shrift of it, well, nothing can set one off or over the edge, like a crowded store.

And this time of year, crowded stores are everywhere.  Good luck trying to find an uncrowded one.  What happened to online shopping being the death knell of brick and mortar?  Shouldn’t all these people be home shopping for their stuff online? Apparently not.  Well, who am I to judge anyway? I am out there shopping too.

Which brings me to why being able to shop or run errands on a weekday is one of the top joys of being retired.  You can, wait for it, avoid the crowds! It’s a magical, elusive achievement, avoiding crowds, is.  It’s kind of like the quest for the Holy Grail. 

People are always helping you out with advice about how to avoid crowds. It seems to be a general consensus that one should, at all and any costs, do their very best to avoid them.  In fact, the phrase itself ought to be in all caps given the urgency and the earnestness with which people discuss it.  AVOID THE CROWDS! 

Think about it. Has anyone ever recommended you go somewhere or drive somewhere that’s going to be crowded? No, it’s always, don’t take the Schuylkill at 5 pm on a weekday, it’s going to be crowded, too much traffic.  Take Lincoln Drive to Kelly Drive instead.  Actually, those will be crowded at that hour too. Best to go earlier or later. Or, are you crazy? You want to go to the King of Prussia Mall on any day in the month of December? Do you know how crowded that will be?  Save yourself the trouble and just go to Willow Grove. Or, you bought lawn seats to that concert, are you crazy? You better get there early to get a good spot because it’s going to be crowded.

The other day, I was clearly not thinking, and found myself at Sam’s Club on a Saturday.  As I tried to steer my cart through the aisles and the many people like it was an obstacle course or a video game of Frogger, I chastised myself for not realizing what day of the week it was (another joy of being retired.  It’s like every day is Friday. To anyone who is not retired and still reading this, I am sorry you had to read that. If you made it this far without any negative feelings, I applaud you, but realize that that one might have been too much). 

I thought about abandoning and coming back on Monday, but I gutted it out and just sternly reminded myself to pay more attention to the day of the week next time.

So, here we are. Under 2 weeks out from Christmas. Crowds abound.  You know the drill.  Avoid them if you can. Easier said than done for some of us, I know.