I suppose you might think me selfish, but I wanted a party. I mean, what else is working for if it’s not to get to point in life when you can stop working? I have been working almost non-stop since I was fourteen. My work experiences included:
- Trimming the greens at a golf course. (Not exactly Caddyshack.)
- Sales at a farmer’s co-op (My sales tickets weren’t always right, but they always evened out.)
- Working in a rebar factory. (That job sucked.)
- Playing Winnie-the-Pooh at Sears. (Enough about that.)
- Working nights polishing floors at K-Mart. (That job provided championship buffer skills that were a plus in basic training!)
- Served in the U.S. Air Force. (Twenty years working in building without windows.)
- Worked at Winn-Dixie. (Discovered that working with the common people isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.)
- Worked for a defense contractor. (Twenty more years mostly working in buildings without windows.)
Finally, after all this, I am retiring on September 30, 2020. I had things all planned out to retire earlier, though. I was going to retire on the 10th, two days before my birthday. I was going to have a big weekend long party with lots of friends and immense amounts of food and booze.
Then came the pandemic and every stopped. We all self-isolated and quarantined. We all had to limit human contact. Plans were set aside. As I write this, the pandemic that should have lasted only months is still going full bore.
At work, they were still trying to find a replacement for me, so I offered to stay until the end of the month. And that was fine with me. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything anyway. But the latest thing is that my co-workers wanted to take me out to lunch on my last day. And that would be okay if it was just a couple of us at a “safe” restaurant. But it wasn’t just a couple of us. The group kept growing, so I had to put my foot down and cancel. It just wouldn’t be safe for them or for me.
So, that’s it. Nothing. Next week, I turn off the lights in my office, close the door, sign a few papers, and I am just a memory. And, sure, just like other jobs I’ve held, I will no doubt get a few phone calls and emails, and we’ll promise to get together when all this nonsense clears up.
But it won’t happen, because that’s the way people are, not that they intend to be that way. Humans have a short attention span. It’s a defense mechanism in the human psyche. Although their intentions are for the best, yesterday is superseded by today’s concerns and experiences. I will be relegated to memory.
And that’s okay. I am ready to be a memory. Again.
©2020 Kevin Fraleigh
