Living Retired #194- May 8, 2017
RAIN-A-GEDDON WEEKEND
Today’s Living Retired is presented by the Umbrella Manufacturers Association whose slogan is: ‘We keep making umbrellas because you idiots keep losing them!’
This past weekend residents in the Midwest and eastern North America suffered through three days of torrential rainstorms!
How bad was it? Well I know you’re going to say ‘Ahh come on Gary this is fake news!’–but some kids got so bored staying inside that they shutdown their PlayStation. And some even came and sat down with their parents to watch television!!
“Look, if you kids don’t settle down and binge watch ‘Say Yes To The Dress’ with me I’m going to have to tell your father!”
“Dear, please don’t laugh at the kids when they spurt apple juice from their juice box out of their nose. It only encourages them!”
Most parents took advantage of the time together as a family and used it as a teaching moment. A teaching moment is another way of saying, “Okay, what can we do now to amuse the little brats?”
All weekend long mothers and fathers sat with their children at the kitchen table playing Monopoly. This was an opportunity to teach the kids valuable life lessons: learning to count money, collect rent, home ownership, converting properties into monster income-producing hotels, declaring bankruptcy… and creating a conglomerate by buying all the railroad companies so you can gouge customers! In other words teaching your children the doctrine of the Republicans.
“Dear, every time it says ‘Go to jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200’ you don’t have to say I can’t visit Pier 1 on my way. It was funny only the first time.”
Those who insisted on going outside in the monsoon-like rainstorm to stock up on necessities including milk, bread, and lottery tickets– took their life in their hands because they did so without an umbrella.
This is because whenever you need your umbrella, you can never find it! I mean most middle age baby boomers can’t remember what they had for breakfast– genetically modified, glucose-free, low in sugar, high in fibre Lucky Charms– so there’s no hope in hell that they’ll remember where they left their umbrella.
But you know what?
It doesn’t matter that you can’t find your umbrella. That’s because the Umbrella Manufacturers Association design umbrellas so that as soon as you open them, they immediately turn inside-out, upside-down! This explains why your wife doesn’t want to walk with you under an inverted umbrella the size of one of those huge spinning tea cups at Disney’s Mad Tea Party ride!
Through the weekend, baby boomers- at least those whose children have left the house but haven’t moved back yet– discovered just how difficult it is when you’re forced to spend that much time together!
This meant that wives had waaayyy too much time on their hands. So they placed a wooden bowl with a sachet of potpourri beside their computer and joined an online chat discussing hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, wrinkles, weight gain, binging on chocolate, and watching The Batchelor.
Husbands went to their workshop– AKA: the treadmill in the basement with unopened boxes of tools from Home Depot on top– where they proceeded to try their hand building an arc. After all, how difficult can it be to build a model arc? A little wood, some Gorilla Glue, rolls of duct tape… and Voila! It felt good to assemble something without using an Allen wrench!
“Dear, you have to come back upstairs. The kids are stir crazy. Now your son is upset because he says his sister is breathing the same air as his!”
“Honey, since when is he my son? I’m busy. Why don’t you give them the iPad to play with like when we drive to the cottage?”
Eventually your wife stomps downstairs and screams, “Exactly what have you been doing all this time? You’ve been down in the basement so long the kids and I have watched three episodes of ‘Love It Or List It!”
Sunday, and it’s still raining…
Downstairs, the kids were entertaining themselves– laughing until they peed their pants looking at the photographs in their parents high school yearbooks!
Upstairs, their parents passed the time playing a game of ‘Things we would put in our arc.’ Guys approach it logically and list beer and a television remote. Women, well they can’t be thinking when with a straight face they say they’d pack tofu, alfalfa sprouts and low-fat salad dressing.
I’m blaming all the rain on El Niño– which is Spanish for, “Hey who wants more tequila?”
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Gary Chalk a retired Canadian baby boomer is a member of Humor Writers of America. Each week over 3,000 people across North America read Living Retired. To unsubscribe or to book Gary’s keynote presentation ‘I Don’t Have Wrinkles, I Have Laugh Lines’ visit https://livingretired.press
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