YOU HAVE ENTERED... THE COMFORT ZONE

Who needs a hobby when
you look like this?

 Hitting retirement age is kind of strange. And I’m not talking about how the cashier at the grocery store knew to offer me the senior discount when I was masked.

 No, we’re led to believe that retirement allows us the time to indulge in what we really want to do. Then before you have a chance to binge watch The Three Stooges, a gaggle of self-appointed experts decide that we really should be up to is taking up new hobbies lest our mental and physical health diminish like our IRAs this year.

 The hobbies they suggest never include mine – making snide comments under my breath at young people in saggy jeans, for instance, and fantasizing what I’d like to do to the guy across the street who insists on practicing the trumpet-playing out his window.

 These perfectly harmless diversions apparently aren’t going to give me the heart rate of an Olympic javelin thrower or the mindpower of Watson, the Jeopardy-winning computer. The marching order always barked out is “Get out of your comfort zone!” So much for retirement being the time for, you know, being comfortable.

To me, it's silly in any language.

Now, I’m perfectly open to engaging in the usual activities we seniors are expected to pursue. Pickleball seems like fun, even if the word “pickleball” is too embarrassing to speak aloud. Day-long bike rides are always a good idea, too, if it includes a beer break or two along the way. And a weekend drive in the country? Count me in. Just make sure the radio doesn’t drown out the Google Maps guide as she leads me straight to my destination without any uncomfortable detours.

 These undertakings, unfortunately, don’t earn me brownie points from those supposedly in the know. And once again I’m given a list of recreations that I not only have no interest in but will likely have the effect opposite of their intention.

I blame Pres. Bush.

 Skydiving, for instance. I can’t go a week without reading about someone age 90 and above deciding it was time to jump out of a flying airplane. Does this make any sense at all to you?

 And somehow this person is hailed as a role model. Sure – if by role model you mean for an extended stay at the psych ward. Give me credit for just being in a 220-ton contraption flying eight miles up in the sky at 600 miles an hour.

 Another thing allegedly guaranteed to make my brain a decade or two younger is learning a new language. Forget that I barely averaged a C in French at an age when our minds are supposed to be receptive to such things. You think I’m going to memorize an entire language when I need a shopping list to purchase anything more than milk? Bonne chance, mon ami.

 “But what if you want to travel to another country?” the true-believers wail. To which I wail back, “That’s what guided tours are for!” Heck, I’m not entirely onboard with my wife’s idea of us traveling by ourselves to Scotland – and they speak English over there (more or less).

Speaking of vacations, the absolute worst thing my wife and I could do that’s all the rage is traveling in an RV. Before going further, I need to emphasize that we’ve been happily married for 30 years – almost half our lives – and couldn’t imagine what our lives would be without the other. It was only when we met that we realized what love really meant.

Now this I'd drive.

 All that goes flying out the sunroof once I get behind a steering wheel. That’s when I’m put in the impossible position of being expected to drive, yet not the way I do. Meaning, the way my wife drives.

 For the life of me, I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. I stay in the proper lane, avoid going too much over the suggested speed, and avoid hitting the stray deer that wanders onto the highway. Sure, I might tap on the brake a little too hard from time to time, but at least I don’t slam into the car in front of us.

 Still, it’s a rare jaunt where I don’t make a mistake and the next thing I know, we’re trying to remember the 800-number of the divorce lawyer who advertises on the morning news. Experiencing this kind of expedition in a vehicle the size of strip-mall drugstore can only shorten my life.

 My mother spent the last 20 years of her life doing nothing more strenuous than driving to the bank to cash her Social Security check, listening to hours of  talk radio, and stocking up her freezer with cheese. She lived to be 96.

 With genes like hers, I figure just a good bike ride now and then will allow me to live long enough to take part in the colonization of Mars. Martians don’t practice trumpet playing out the window, do they?

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