Reclining in Retirement – Vince

Hello Everyone:

To be honest, I haven’t done much with retirement planning this week.  There has been just too much going on.  The budget seems to have taken a rest for the moment.  We went a little overboard last week while on vacation so now it’s time to regroup in that area.  Consideration of places to live has also slowed down.  Every once in a awhile I get an email from Judy with the heading, “take a look at this”, but not too much more.  As for hobbies, there hasn’t been much more talk lately.  So, I guess we are just in la la land, at the moment. I’m supposed to be getting the garden ready today, but it looks like our one of three storm events for the year might take place today.  Sure don’t want to get mud on my shoes.  I know there is a list of other honey do’s around here somewhere, but I am not sure where I put it.  I most likely will clean and organize something.  I need that feeling of accomplishment that comes with being out of the recliner for a while.

I don’t think I told you but the recliner broke!  It seems to have a hard time staying reclined.  I don’t want to accuse anyone, but I did see some tools in the living room that weren’t supposed to be there and I found some metal shavings on the floor.  The other day when I went to sit in my chair, Judy was just staring at me in a strange way.  She didn’t say a thing.  As I leaned back in the chair, there was a loud clunk and down the chair went a few notches on the recline.  She immediately turned her back to me and I thought I heard her say “yes”.   The next day she said the recliner had to go because it was broken.  I said no, they have a lifetime warranty.    Judy’s response, “you have a week or it will be at the curb”!  We went through this a few years ago when she replaced my favorite chair with one she picked out.  I came home one day and she said “Surprise! You have a new chair”.  In my chair’s place was this blue thing.  She tells me to try it out.  Horrified, where’s my chair I ask.  They took it away she said.  Took it where?  She replies, I don’t know.   I called the furniture company and tell them I want my chair back.  Too late, it’s already been taken to the dump!   That had to be one of the worst days of my life…  Well to make a long story short and back to the present – I guess this time she didn’t want to stress me as bad so she is forgoing the surprise and replacing it with an ultimatum.   I called Lazy Boy and inquired about how to get new parts.   That wasn’t so easy and it takes longer than a week.  You have to call your local store and have them order the parts.  After about 5 calls back and forth between the company and the store, I believe the parts are on their way.  How will this work since Judy has given me one week or the chair has to go?  She agreed to give me an extension if she could order a “few” skeins of yarn.  Without even asking what a few meant, I agreed.  I didn’t want to live through another recliner scare.  It’s hard to think about retirement when a man’s chair is being threatened.  As of now, I have a duct tape solution in place while waiting for the parts to arrive.  Hopefully after the scare dies down, I can get back to the retirement thinking.  As my daddy always said, “A man ain’t squat without a good chair!”