There are several levels of lazy. I am sure you are acquainted with some of them, if only because you have watched the slackers around you tweedle deeing when they should be tweedle doing.
You, of course, don’t have this problem, and I am proud of you. So proud. But please, in the name of every sloth currently hanging by its toes from a tropical tree somewhere, uninterested in any activity involving movement, I beg of you not to be too smug. Because all the Laziness Levels eventually touch most people’s lives and even if you are strong enough to escape them, you might not be able to evade the Hall of Fame level – The Laziness of the Retired.
And while you may think right now that you will have well devised strategies ahead of time to combat the temptation to sit like a frog in a pond all day and wait for insects to fly too close to your tongue, you might find yourself drawn to Total Idleness on only your second day after retiring.
I just don’t have the energy to go into all the ins and outs of Retirement Lazy, but maybe this example will do.
Leaving the bathroom after your premiere morning visit, you feel an old familiar nether region cooling wind and realize your fly is open. Now, closing your fly is something you were always pretty good at attending to, but retired, zipping up the he-man hardware is just one of those things that can be attended to later.
After all, you rightfully reason, The Queen and Prince Philip don’t arrive at your home till Sunday and this is only Thursday. No panic.
You drive all other family members to their non-retirement destinations such as school and work, then hit the coffee shop. There is a breeze, somehow, under your table, and once again, the fly trouble calls for a solution. But you are wearing a long winter coat, no risk of sudden exposure.
However, two hours later, upon exiting a grocery store, a blast of Arctic air works its way up into the unadjusted apparel and suddenly, the wages of your sin seem much too high to pay.
So, four hours after first identifying the issue, the matter is dealt with. Tomorrow, you will brush your teeth. The day after that, there will be a meeting of clippers and fingernails but only those nails in dire need of trimming shall be attended to.
The Queen would not be amused but just watch her decadent decline once she, too, retires. Which, and there is a lesson in this somewhere, she just hasn’t gotten around to doing.
What a Procrastinating Princess!
©2015 Jim Hagarty
