Life After VERP

VERP, the final frontier.   That’s Voluntary Early Retirement Program.  I signed up and this is what I’ve come to know three weeks in:

1.     I need to stay away from magazines like AARP & Business Week. 

Invariably, the 2^nd page of every issue has a title from a financial institution’s advertisement that reads, “Don’t Run Out of Money During Retirement” or “What if I Can’t Maintain my Lifestyle.”  My favorite is, “What if I don’t see the other “What If’s” coming?”  Its reassuring to know that so many large financials are waiting in the wings to save my bacon as I blow through my family’s life savings in 52 weeks.  My wife thinks this is very humorous.

2.     I’ve determined that I’m very good at wasting money…usually out of sheer stupidity.  Whether it’s unplanned trips to the emergency room, or blowing up your boat (never connect the negative cable to the positive terminal and start’er up)…I seem to have a talent for this.   My most recent gaff was a $108.50 boating ticket on July 4^th for not having my navigation lights on.  I’m the only civilian on the lake, minding my own business…when the ever-helpful folks from the PA Fish & Game come along.  Next day I’m grousing about how the lights are broken and I’m going to have to hire someone to fix them (I do not touch anything electrical any more).  I’m on the boat and I decide to push in the fuse toggle switch that supports the navigation lights.  Lights start working again as well as the radio…Son of a @#$*%!

3.     I’m no longer allowed to touch any of the electronics in the house.  I was told the MAC is very easy to use.  This is not true, not at all.  I normally let my wife upgrade the family MAC and she does it when she deems it necessary.  We received a message on the screen about a couple of upgrades that were needed.  I figured I have plenty of time now, I can handle this.  So I puffed out my chest and started clicking a number of buttons.  (Did I mention I just purchased a new MacPro laptop? That’s the only way I can communicate now, because I screwed up the home iMAC in a major way.).  I’ve been told I’ll be going to school for this.

4.     You'd be amazed at how quickly your spouse can learn to articulate each and every aspect of your personality that annoys her.  And conversely, I’ve become very proficient at helping (telling) the rest of the family what to do around the house.  Seems with all this extra time on my hands that I’m now been able to determine how they can improve on various aspects of their daily lives.  Oddly, they do not seem appreciative, not in the slightest.  I kind of got this notion when after about a week, my wife’s right eye began to twitch uncontrollably until she finally came out with some comment about a routine that the three of them had in place for about 19 years (that didn’t include me) and it seemed to work just fine.

And that leads us to one of my first trips (to save my marriage) on the Appalachian Trail.  Things I’ve learned about hiking and the Appalachian Trail: 

      A.     Reading a book about hiking is not like hiking at all…no matter how much intense visualization you do.

      B.  Walking in sneakers on the sidewalk is different than hiking in boots up and down mountains on a trail.

      C.  Hiking on extremely rocky trails up and down mountains with a 50 pound pack (just so we’re clear, 50 lbs. is very heavy)…when you’re not in good shape, and a little past your mid-life crisis (I’m being generous here)….is a lot of work.

I’ll spare you my gastronomic challenges, but take stage “C” above and add a significant number of Black Bears and Copper Head Snakes.  Now imagine you’ve already told half the world (granted I was at stage “A” when I made this mistake) that you were going to hike a challenging sections of the Appalachian Trail…for seven days.  And now, because you have just a dash of pride left, can’t back out.  That’s kind of where I’m at right now.  Stay tuned for a mid September update.

What I got for Mother's Day

So I’m considering taking a Voluntary Early Retirement Package (VERP).  One of my concerns is that while I’m at home some family dynamics could be changing.  Top of mind is that without having the ability to grouse incessantly about my unbearable commute…I’ll be expected to do a lot more around the house.  I’m not the handiest guy in the world and on a patience scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest…I’m a negative 7.  I’m very good at stripping screws, ruining the finish on fine things, and minor electrocution.  Sharp objects or things that spin at hi-speed are definite “no-nos”.  If they’re both sharp and spin at hi-speeds there’s a real good chance I’m going to the emergency room.  And usually at the end of my projects there are many left over parts.  The phrase, “What the @#$%^” can be heard repeatedly, coupled with things being thrown viciously about.  I’m a joy to be with.

This past week I come home from my unbearable commute…(we really need to see if there’s any leftover TARP money that can be donated to New Jersey Transit.  They need to get parts to fix their “disabled trains.”  They seem to get stuck in the tunnel leading into NYC at least every other day.  As luck would have it, I’m either on one or stuck behind one all week long).  I walk through the door and head up stairs to change out of my uniform into sweats and a tee shirt.  I come downstairs and both my wife and daughter ask me, so what did you think of the bathroom?  Now I’m thinking, “I have no idea, I didn’t look in the bathroom.”  I know this will not be satisfactory because I’m a notorious non-noticer.  My usual crime is haircuts.  Unless my wife is going for a Crew or Mohawk…there’s a good chance it will not register with me.  Then I’m pretty weak as I try to recover.  I know I’m about to go down this path shortly.

As I struggle, my daughter jumps up and says, “I want to be there when you see it”, so we march upstairs.  We’re standing at the entrance to the bathroom and I notice three new small carpets and call them out.   I’m now playing 20 questions calling out items I see… the lights have not changed, we have the same mirrors; we still have sinks…then it finally kicks in.  MY Wife has actually replaced both sink faucets in our bathroom AND the maze of plumbing to and from the new faucets.  And it all works and looks beautiful.  In complete awe, I look at my daughter and say, “I could not have done this.”

My wife tells me about her multiple trips to Home Depot, the different lengths of PVC tubing needed to complete the job, her expert use of plumber’s putty, and the piece of resistance was when she was using her legs and feet banging on a wrench to break the seal of a fitting that wouldn’t come lose. Only for a split second did I envision what I would have been like trying to achieve what she did.  (Picture a mushroom cloud from an atomic blast.)  First we would have needed all new plumbing, new mirrors, glass doors and a trip…at least to the pharmacy.

So my gift for Mother’s Day was not only a new set of great looking faucets coupled with the saving of my sanity…but the pleasure in knowing that my wife is not only tech support for all of our user friendly electronics, but also, more than capable of doing my chores.  (I have a very old lawn mower that now electrocutes me when I try to turn it off…maybe she can fix that for Father’s Day)

Spring Break 2014

We’ve gathered up a couple of life-times of flight miles so me and the Fam are going to Italy on Spring Break.  (8 days of touring & 2 days of flying bliss)  And with this mountain of accumulated miles, all four of us are flying “Business Class”…very nice.   The seats are more like personal size pods placed in a large spacious lounge area.  Each Pod has a Hi-Tech chair with 17 different points of adjustment.  If you’re a yogi or contortionist, you’re in 7th heaven.

 

So before the trip I was told that there are fabulous “deals” to be had in glass and leather goods. Needless to say, we overpaid so many times I lost count.   At times I felt like we were wearing signs that said, “Will Pay More.”

At the Rome Airport they also have a clever way of trying to ensure you will not collect your VAT Tax back.  They send you on a multi-terminal chase where nobody is really quite sure where you’re supposed to go.  It’s a great game where they’re hoping you’ll give up in fear of missing your flight.  We’ll have none of this.  We’d rather miss our flights “Business Class” than not get our $ 150 dollars in VAT tax back.

We get our VAT tax back and now race to the terminal for our Flight.  Drum Roll… this is how our ride home went down:

Some history: We started out months ago with four Business Class Direct Flights from NYC to Rome and back…all using mileage…lovely.  About 4 months ago we got a call from the Airline.  Seems they’ve cancelled our flight home, it no longer exists.  We’re told they can fly us direct from Rome to Los Angeles and then fly us from LA to NYC.  I asked the person on the other end of the line, if he was pinching himself to keep from laughing while giving that offer.  Too quickly he countered with, “Well we can just cancel all your flights if you like.”  I turn the situation over to the Mrs. and now we’re flying from Rome to London, changing planes and then London to NYC.  Not great, but what can you do.

About a month ago, we get another one of these mysterious calls from the airline.  Seems they’ve cancelled another flight of ours out of Rome.  The Mrs. fixes this too…we’re now flying from Rome to Chicago (11 hours), changing planes and back to NYC.   You can’t make this stuff up…but it gets better.

As we arrive at the Rome airport and check in unloading our luggage the girl behind the counter ask us if our son had requested, “Not to have a Business Class seat.”  Bizarre question, but we assure her; no he definitely wants to sit with us in “Business Class”.

We get to the end of the line at the gate and people from the airline approach us asking us to come with them to the counter…I’m thinking maybe we’ve won a prize or something.   This is not the case.  They have terrible news for us, which they seem less than broken up about.  Seems that two of our four Business Class seats have a “life vest” issue and no one can sit there.  We volunteer to wear our life vests during the flight but unfortunately that will not be acceptable.  After the required amount of raising of the voices and challenges, we realized they held all the cards…and we still needed to get home.  (Personally I couldn’t deal with another $400 spaghetti dinner.) We’re the last four people on the plane and they close the doors behind us.

Sure enough the two front seats that were ours are empty.  Then an interesting set of events happened.  They announce over the PA system that they have a couple of flight attendants that are retiring today and this is their last flight home.  They wanted to make it special for them.  Sounds nice. Right after that announcement one of the flight attendants comes up to me and my son sitting in business class and says she just wanted to let us know that a flight attendant is going to be sleeping in one of the seats we had.  She goes on to say, she can sit there because she works for the airline, but we can’t.  I tell her if my wife finds out you’re going to need to get the Air Marshall.   It gets better.  She comes back about 30 minutes later and says, “Someone got sick near another stewardess’s jump seat, and that stewardess is going to need to take our other “Business Class” seat.”  At this point my wife is dragging both flight attendants by the hair out of our seats, and the Air Marshall is on her back trying to take her down…at least that’s what I’m envisioning.  Fait Accompli.

More Fun – We land in Chicago tired, pissed, irritable, and late.  We’re now the family from the movie Home Alone running through the Chicago airport trying to get through Customs and make our connecting flight back to NYC.  We have Priority Tags on our luggage because we’re flying “Business Class”, but literally, our bags are the last ones off the conveyor belt.   When we finally get our bags and run to another check point, someone from the airline tells us that we have a shot at making our flight, but that our bags will never make it on the plane.  She asks if we want to reschedule our flight home…more screaming and yelling…we decide, no, we’re going to try to make this happen…the Gods have to cut us a break sooner or later…or so we thought. 

It was good that Chicago’s O’Hare airport is like the 2^nd largest in the nation.  We’re now on our fourth jammed tram ride trying to get to our terminal and depart.  We explode off off the Tram, blowing through anyone in our way as we race to our gate.  We’ve been up for about 24 hours now and running completely on adrenaline…and spite.  Again, large airport, running on empty…can feel my heart starting to pound…like out of my chest…so glad I made the decision to give up physical exercise.  We reach the gate and no one is there…confusion and depression set in.  We look at the board and it says the flight is delayed 30 minutes…Eureka!  This extends to about 90 minutes.  We then get on our plane and are ready to go.  Then the pilot gets on the air and tells us that they can’t find the workers who tow this plane out of the gate…he says, “They must be on a coffee break”,…Really?  Coffee break is over, we get towed out to the runway, and now that we’re 2 hours late…we’re number 73 in line to take off.

We avoid a crash landing; baggage again is last off the plane, as I get my final reminder of why I’m a homebody who prefers “Staycations.”