Retirement Horror Vol. II

My last "retirement horror" post dealt with the dangers of not investing properly. Being old and broke is the stuff nightmares are made of. This essay isn't nearly as serious, but it is terrifying nonetheless. I cannot provide in this essay, as I did in the previous one about retirement, links to concrete sources to validate my argument. I can, however, provide eyewitness testimony to an event I witnessed last night that should scare the socks off anyone who spends time wondering how retirement might be.

I visited my parents this past weekend at their winter home near Tampa, Florida. They, like many others, winter in a retirement community; you cannot buy a home there unless you're at least 55. To be fair, it seemed like a very close-knit group of people living there. Since my folks don't smoke, I stood outside when smoking, and there was a nearly constant parade of retirees walking in the warm Florida weather, and without fail, every person that walked by smiled and/or waved and said "Hello", or "Good Morning". I learned from my folks to be gracious and gregarious, so I of course returned their greetings. I felt a little guilty though, because my parents had told me that there were a lot of "walkers" in the park, and I immediately pictured a horde of old people looking for all the world like zombies, lurching aimlessly about the neighborhood. I'm happy to say that the people I spoke to were all very nice, and were obviously enjoying themselves. You might ask, "Where's the horror in that"?

Since the members of this community are so social (presumably because they can afford to have little else to do), they invent all sorts of reasons to congregate with alarming frequency. Last night, they held a birthday party for everyone, complete with cake and ice cream and, as an added treat, they had a musical revue featuring several residents who called themselves "The Choralettes". Each had a red sparkly vest with a bow tie; they were dressed like an old fashioned barbershop quartet (sans moustaches), and they sang show tunes and Frank Sinatra and a Rogers & Hammerstein medley. Songs from their youth. Again, where's the horror in that? Were they, for the most part, horribly off-key? Yes. Did the mere 40 minute show seem like a grinding, inexorably tortuous lifetime? Of course, but they were old people, and I expected that. But as I watched this performance, I suddenly saw in my mind's eye a sight that made my skin crawl.

In an absurd (and wholly understandable, I think) moment, I saw my own retirement community, and it was very unpleasant. Instead of blue-haired geriatrics dressed like an organ grinder's monkey, I saw a crowd of aging hippies, complete with bald pates and scraggly ponytails, dressed in black pleather vests straining to complete "Stairway to Heaven". I saw 70 year old women, frail with age, stooped over to compensate for the weight of their breast implants. (The sight of a woman that age with boobs that still stand up like a 20 year old's really disturbed me). Instead of cake and ice cream, it was hash brownies and jell-o shots. The emcee told sort-of-dirty jokes that nobody found offensive, and instead of golf shirts and blouses, clothing consisted of tye-dyed jeans and plaid maxi skirts.

The actual scene I was watching was surreal; the imagined one was downright hellish.

I'm not sure if I'll live to retirement age, and my lapses into imagination tend to convince me that maybe it's best if I don't. I believe that if you plan for the worst, you'll never be disappointed, and I cling to that philosophy in the hope that I'm right. Retirement looms large, though, and I worry about it. A lot. But you know that.