It Is Time To Retire
A poem:
When it comes time to retire,
Men become happier,
Women shout "Hurray!",
And throw their dentures into the air.
Those who are employed often ask:
“How do you retirees spend your days, how do you kill time?”
The question, of course, is interesting. Everyone without an official job finds a hobby for themselves. Some sit on benches and observe each passerby, discussing neighbors’ behaviors and clothes, snacking on seeds, and washing them down with water. When they return home, they call their friends and discuss what they saw that day. And they complain about a small pension. A pleasant way to spend time!
What follows is the story of a Russian pensioner; unfortunately, I do not know the author’s name.
How do we spend our free time?
Yesterday, my wife and I went to city to shop, and we returned in the evening.
Upon leaving the parking lot, we saw a policeman giving us a ticket for having parked for too long.
Politely, with a smile, I asked him if he could show some mercy to a couple pensioners and not fine us.
Without any reaction, he put the ticket under the car’s windshield wiper.
This pissed me off and I called him a dumbass.
He looked at me, expressionless, and wrote out another ticket for having a flat tire, placing it under the first.
Here, my wife intervened.
She informed him that he was an asshole, for which a third fine was issued.
The more we insulted him, the more fines he wrote out.
This commotion lasted about ten minutes.
Then came our bus, and we drove home.
We did not feel bad for the owner of the car; his car had a sticker that said, “Down with Israel. I support Hamas.”
So, this is how some pensioners spend their time.
This story reminded me of a story that happened in New York City several years ago. My husband and I had arrived in New York to visit some friends, walk around the city, and see the major sights. Before our departure, we went to Brighton Beach, walked around there a bit, and we also visited a Russian food store. For some reason, there are no Russian food stores in Columbia, but we want our familiar food. Anyway, we bought some food, filling our bags with it, and put it all in our car. We looked at the clock, and there was some time before we were set to meet up with some friends and walk around the city. We hit a few more Russian stores, bought some more food, and returned to the car.
We parked near the beach—and to do this, we had to buy a parking pass (which we bought) and place it on our dashboard (which we did). All of a sudden, we see a police officer, standing near our minivan and writing a ticket. What was he doing?!
Imagine a tall, robust, and highly large man, in a police officer’s uniform, standing like a tank—and he was writing and writing! We went up to him and asked nicely, “what was wrong?” The giant didn’t say anything—he continued writing. We asked him again; he, again, did not respond.
Then, he lifted up a windshield wiper and slipped under it some kind of piece of paper. I took it, and saw that it was a fine. “For what?” I exclaimed, gesturing wildly. It turns out that we’d parked improperly; apparently, a sign nearby had said that the parking spot belonged to a specific business—it was forbidden for anyone else to park there. We started explaining that the sign couldn’t be seen from where we’d been parked—it was simply facing the other direction!
The policeman didn’t say anything and attempted to put the fine under the windshield; I again took it out. Anyway, no matter how we tried to explain it—“We’re not from here! We don’t know your rules! We’re poor pensioners!”—he didn’t budge, and only pointed repeatedly at the sign. I couldn’t take it any longer and called him an ultimate Russian cuss word (but in Russian). He became silent and I again reached into my artillery of extremely vile and hideous Russian language weaponry to barrel “a big one” at him. This continued for several minutes.
In the end, we were left with a parking ticket with a hefty sum. But we had just spent a lot of money on our food! Angry and tired, we returned to where we were staying.
How did this story end? I managed to get through to a special office for fines. We explained the situation, and they reduced the penalty a bit. We paid it and remembered that you must always park correctly when in a big city!
This is how we spent our free time!