Please don’t ask me if I’ve retired or “still work”

Friends,

It happened again this morning.

I was in the locker room of a local gym when someone I didn’t know asked me: “So, are you retired?”

I mumbled something indecipherable and looked away.

I hate that question. Just as bad is: “So, you still working?”

They make me feel ancient. Why would anyone ask them of a complete stranger unless the stranger looked like a small dried-up fossil?

I admit I’m an an older person, but I don’t like to think of myself as old. Old and retired? Old and not working? Shit, man.

It’s okay that they don’t read my Substack or watch my videos. I’m not insulted. But if they feel entitled to approach me as if they know me, I’d at least hope for some tiny recognition that I’ve been busting my ass.

Besides, the word “retired” conjures up someone who’s been put out to pasture. Or plays golf.

I don’t mean to demean older golfers. My father retired when he turned 65 and played golf for the next 30 years. When I phoned him on Sundays I asked about his game and he was eager to tell me. When he was 95 he made a “hole in one” — when he teed off, his golf ball sailed through the air and onto the green and then rolled directly into the hole on the green. At which point he promptly and happily retired from the game.

Thereafter, he stopped talking about golf. When I asked how he was doing, he always said cheerfully “still here!” He was still there until two weeks before his 102nd birthday, and then he wasn’t. I miss him.

But I don’t play golf.

When my grandfather — my father’s father — retired, he spent his days watching television (yes, there was television in the mid-1950s). He watched baseball during the day and at night watched Lawrence Welk, Jackie Gleason, and Danny Thomas. When I spent weekends with him and my grandma Minnie, I was bored to tears.

I watch almost no television.

I don’t recall my mother or grandmother ever being asked if they were retired or “still working.” Even women my age seem to avoid these questions. Is it because of a sexist assumption they don’t or didn’t have careers outside the home? Or fear they’d be insulted if thought old enough to formally retire?

The term is applied to angry players who leave a match before its scheduled conclusion, as when Buffalo Bills cornerback Vontae Davis “retired” at halftime in a game against the Los Angeles Chargers, taking off his jersey and leaving the stadium in a huff.

Well, I’m not an angry player, and I’m not leaving this match before it ends. As long as Trump continues to try to pull America into a shithole, I’m fighting back.

I’ll keep fighting Trump and all other authoritarian scumbags until my last breath.

Meanwhile, the next person who asks me if I’m retired or “still working,” I’m going to ask if they still have all their marbles.

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