"Justice is a knee in the gut
from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the
magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of
warning. Garroting. That's what justice is."
- Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Instead of musing on the
unfairness of life, I thought I’d write about lifestyle choices. In choosing to
use the term “lifestyle” instead of, say, life, I deliberately set the bar of
philosophical depth at about twelve inches. I mean, you could still drown in this
post, but you’d have to be pretty drunk.
Now, by lifestyle, I don’t mean the latest topic
of the politics of division: transgender rights and all the carefully crafted
euphemisms we now tiptoe through in such discussions. Due respect, but I’d be a
neutered dog in that fight.
I mean choosing the
penultimate stage of life – the one we chose while we can still compos enough
mentis to be as independent as possible and minimize the responsibility for our
own maintenance and upkeep.
No more lawns to mow. No more
stairs to haul laundry down and back. Uber and curbside assistance. Grocery
delivery. A landlord to replace light bulbs. Utilities included. In-apartment
laundry. Proximity to life-flight and good ER response times. Seriously? Sadly,
yes.
For my next trick: an
apartment on the 16th floor of a building with a steakhouse adjacent to the
“controlled access” lobby. My mission is to make this the next act of my lifestyle
choices. The current act began when I bought an expensive piece of furniture
from my sole savings in a color that wasn’t brown. I bought a comfortable couch
in green and loveseat in blue: the colors of my freedom from brown and dark
wood. Then, when my spouse died on the green couch, I sold the whole house and
moved out of state, leaving my former lifestyle – real and imagined – behind in
San Diego. I took the couches to Seattle, but they're staying behind when I move. I’m buying a new couch in greige.
While I will dearly miss
Paulo, my imaginary pool boy, I’m thinking there will be a doorman. I’ll need
to find some American heartland name instead of the vaguely un-PC Hispanic
name. (I love the Hispanics, and taco salads and mild salsa as much as the next
pumpkin though. I have a tremendous respect for the Hispanics. Ask anyone.)
My imaginary doorman’s name
will be Corey. Is Corey. If there is
any justice in the world for privileged boomers who outlive their spouses and
live on double dip pensions and consult their tax advisors about
where to invest that mandatory 501(k) distribution, it would compensate us by
providing individualized Coreys to offset our failing health.
The world’s most entitled
generation will not go gracefully into the good night, leaving behind a totaled
economy, political system, effective antibiotic treatment and, well, planet. We’ll
spend our children’s inheritance first. Therefore, along with my prediction
that the next trend in senior living will be leaving the coasts and moving to a
small Midwest urban center or a mountaintop in rural New Mexico; and that
seniors will take over Uber like we took over Facebook; I have one more
prediction.
Expect an uptick in
“assisted” suicides and sudden deaths in my generation, as our middle-aged
former latchkey children implement Joseph Heller’s justice on their clueless
parents. My apartment pictured at left has a balcony and my balance is tricky these days... Corey,
help!
