Twenty years ago, I remember Randy and I talking about when he retired, all the wonderful things we would do. We would travel to far away lands. We would adventure out while at home, going to all the restaurants that we hadn’t had time to explore. We would have time to get up early and go walking to keep our cholesterol down from all the wonderful foods we would be sampling. There would be no store to far for us to go to find just the perfect little item that we just knew we couldn’t live without.

Fast forward to reality. Yes, we are retired and yes we still talk about all those wonderful bucket lists of “wants”. But we find ourselves frequenting the same 2 Walmarts that is within a 5 mile radius of our home. All those great new little restaurants? Well, we did venture out to a new Costco to see if their $1.50 hot dogs were as good as the Costco by our house.

Last night, we ran to Walmart (for the second time that day) to pick up some prescriptions. We received a phone call about 6:30 p.m. and were told that if we didn’t pick them up, they would be put back, as they had been there for 6 days already. If we had known they were ready, we would have picked them up, but either we received a phone call and forgot, as is probably the case, or they were old and forgot to call us. Either way, if we had known, we would have gone to that particular store in the first place that morning, instead of getting out of our comfort zone and venturing out to the Wally World that is a little further away. But, seeing that we are “retired” and have lots of time, we hustled over after dinner to pick the meds that promise to keep us younger, longer.

When pulling into the parking lot, I remembered a few items that I had forgot earlier in the day, so I told Randy that I would go in with him. He went over to the Pharmacy while I went to buy some cards.  We met over by the candy aisle, where he told me that he had found a shirt that he thought would go with his new red shorts that we found at Macy’s. ( I tell you that so you will know that not all our clothes do not come from Walmart). So off we go over to look at the shirts. He shows me the shirt and I had to agree it was actually pretty cute. So we find his size and off to the checkout counter we go. I am telling him all the way there that if our kids comment on his new shirt, what ever he does, DO NOT TELL THEM it came from Walmart. They will never invite us out to eat, for fear we might be wearing a Walmart outfit. Ok, back to the story. We stand in line behind 3 other customers, when Randy remembers that he forgot something. He tells me that he will be right back and I suddenly feel something on the back of me. He has hung his shirt that he is buying, which Is still on the plastic hanger, on the back of my shirt, for me to “hold”, while he goes off to get the forgotten item. I am quickly trying to get the hanger out of my shirt, but it gets caught on my collar. People who are inline behind me begin to giggle as I have my arms up in the air trying to unhook the stupid hanger from inside my shirt.

By the time, Mr. Retiree returns, I am not a happy camper! He walks up grinning and I am wanting to throw his cute little shirt at him, but just smile, so the people in line will just think, “oh how cute, look how much fun they have”.

I tell him to walk quickly out after paying for our goods. After this, I think we will have to get out of our routine and find us a new store for awhile. It seems to me that in retirement, there are less and less stores that we are able to return to. What happened to the man I married, that hardly went anywhere without a 3 piece suit or briefcase? Oh, I remember, he is retired and has found that he likes red shorts and Walmart shirts.

I guess all the trips to the store yesterday wore him out. I’m not saying he slept late, but when the first thing he says when coming downstairs is, “what’s for lunch?” it tells me that we might need to go back to the pharmacy to get some energy vitamins. Might wait a few days just in case they remember us from last night. Retirement is wearing us out. Think we might need to look for a part time job to rest up.