Ups and Downs of Retirement

Whereas before his retirement from his Wonder Bread delivery truck on its seemingly endless route, George Fern had the semi-attractive appearance of a Teddy Bear his current ursine look had devolved into what resembled a poorly executed wood carving of Smokey Bear minus the hat but plus a bald dome.

Fern had increased his daily consumption of Budweiser from a sixer to a twleve pack. The extra carbonated load combined with undiagnosed prostate problems disguised as erectile dysfunction increased George's already way too frequent trips to see a man about a horse. To take a leak. To steal a mirror.

George didn't know about the Mandella effect, nor did he care. George believed in the sin of unnecessary effort and he had arithmetic on his side.

His beleagured wife Fran urinated at most four times a day whereas George was approaching twenty including four or five each night. 

George was pissed off as he wiped the toilet seat that he had pissed on during one of his urgent, somnabulistic treks to the commode.

He resisted the temptation to bellow " Fran, how many times do I have to tell you to leave the seat up?"

George had learned enough about women to know that any question that he asked would be greeted not with an answer but a question regarding the speculative hidden message behind his questions.

Instead he did the math. He would have to raise and lower the seat twenty times every 24 hours. That number could be cut by more than half if Fran remembered to move the seat DOWN after one of her relatively rare usages so that when George stumbled blindly into the water closet after dark, he wouldn't relieve himself and hit the seat in the midst of his releif.

"Is that too goddamned much to ask" George muttered to himself as he put the seat back UP and staggered back to the bed.

An hour or so later, Fran experienced the shock of momentarily squatting on cold porcelain once again.

"How many goddamned times do I have to tell him to put the seat Up after he's finished?'

Fran also believed in least effort especially when it came to repeating herself over and over again in a litany that was either unheard, rationalized or ignored. 

She had her own non-verbal response.

She slammed the seat down.

George heard a gunshot in his dreams, a shot frightened him and turned his dream once again into a nightmare. George had learned that a cogent nightmare could be ended by awakening. When George awoke, he automatically headed to the bathroom for relief from whatever was shooting at him only to discover that once again, the seat was down and he was going to have to go through the wasted effort of putting it back up again while remembering to turn off the light before returning to his next nightmare.

In that nightmare, Fran was yelling at George to put his hat back in the closet. George put his hat on his head and Fran didn't like the fact that George's hat was back on his head rather than in his hand at which point an argument within an argument in a nightmare within a dream began over what difference it made whether he returned the hat to the closet while it was on his head rather than in his hand.

Having determined in his dream that hat or hand made no difference and that Fran was making a big deal out of nothing, George drifted back into the tranquil REM zone within which he would remain until he sensed that Fran had risen from the bed.

Finally he could get some rest until the next urgency.