Get Your Grump On

“Hey, you’re swerving in his lane,” Grandma remarks calmly. Okay, not completely calmly. “No wonder he has to goose around you. Euch!” I grip the panic handle over the passenger window. Thoughtful of Cadillac to provide this. We love our car. It’s so comfy on our old bones.

“Should’a seen me,” Grandpa snarls as he fails to yield to the car in the right lane. “Damn car’s exactly the same color as the asphalt.”

“Lucky he didn’t blast you with the horn,” I mutter. “You deserved it.” The escaped car scoots away from us as fast as he can.

“Probably a kid,” Grandpa grunts disapprovingly. God knows who you’ll see behind the wheel: children, foreigners, people smoking cigarettes. All in a big, big hurry. “Looka that sucker talking on his cell phone!”

Visiting our Retired Horse today we learned that the rancher who keeps him is looking for a new position. That would be, uh, recently the case in our own situation and as a result, Grandpa Jim and I are learning how to get our Grump On.

We never wanted to be retired persons because we have long sneered at retired persons who drive Cadillacs like somebody’s Grandpa and Grandma and weave across the lanes. Wearing white hair, some, anyway, and looking straight ahead as if they were clueless. Avoiding eye contact to better to blame the victim, that little Nissan zooming off. Like many of our fellow citizens, we are reluctant retirees and grumpy.

“He won’t get good gas mileage hitting the pedal like that!” Grandpa says with satisfaction. We are quiet for a moment, recalling his own father’s complaints and how we snickered.

So this is what it's like. Oh hell, let’s hit KFC! I’m always thinking about food these days. Actually need to gain five or ten, must be the blood pressure meds. Now that Gramps isn’t tied to his job we do lunches out. After twenty-five years we’re both pretty fed up with my cooking and Trader Joe’s deli products so we cruise the Fasts: KFC for a thigh and cole slaw, a supremo at Taco Bell, cheesy taties at Jack-in-the-Box and fried tofu at the Kazoo Sushi Boat. Might as well feed ourselves.

The greatest retirement reward so far: a prime rib sandwich at Adamson’s French Dip, twenty minutes up a highway. Real, rare roast beef on a long, tender roll that soaks up the juices WITH a cup of beefy broth just right for jazzing up a leftover stew in the fridge.

Occasionally, certainly not every time we come down the mountain from visiting Retired Horse we allow ourselves to stop at the Woodside Bakery for a luxury hamburger. A Cadillac of tender, juicy beef on a fresh focaccia roll with a slab of gorgonzola criss-crossed with two very fine, not too salty, bacon strips. Probably mayo on the bread, who cares? Twelve ninety-five heart attack, salad for supper, maybe not even that.

This is how involuntarily retired persons live. Pre-elderly, I suppose. We shop for warm clothes and we shop for bargains. We don’t try things on in the store, too hard to undress in those tiny changing rooms, so we have to take things back. Never mind, we can catch a bite on the way home. And we can well use that driving time to criticize other drivers—Whoa, watch out, pal!—and comment on the real estate.

“Look at that ridiculous roof," I say."All those pointy gables. What are they, some kind of a religious sect? Guess this is the north ass-end of the city,” I note with a Grandma whine. “Those leaves will be off the trees any day now. I sure hope the city can still afford to clean them up. Wet leaves are very slippery.”

“And they ruin the asphalt. Eat right into it,” Grandpa replies. A True Curmudegon.

“Stay in your own godamn lane,” I advise. We’re never at a loss for words nowadays. We've got a good Grump On going.