My Despair

I pissed away a small fortune back in the 90's.  That's on me for being a drunk and believing a writer.  But one thing I've done for my entire life, notwithstanding a few sabbaticals along the way, was to work.  Since the week I graduated from high school, I've worked.  Hard.

I grew up believing, because this what I was told, that in America, if you're a team player, and you work, you will get a protective covering when you retire, in the form of Social Security and Medicare.

I turned 62 last year and started "doing the math".  The Social Security Administration started sending me yearly statements showing me "how much" I'd get if I retired at 62, 66 1/2 and 70 1/2.  Needless to say, the big payday for me would come when I was 70.  So I started mentally adjusting myself to the probability that I'd work until then.

But now, who knows what Congress has just given away to the far right meatheads who still fantasize that rich people create jobs.  And what will be my new "plan B" according to them?  Work until I'm 75?  80?  Dead?

I'm not feeling the love from D.C. these days.

Maybe my recurring nightmare of living in a beat-up, 1966, all aluminum Airstream trailer, somewhere in the high desert 80 miles east of L.A., where atomically mutated ants come visiting at night, and you have to shake the scorpions out of your boots every morning, will come true.

It may not be much, but at least it'll be mine!

Thank you, Ronald Reagan.

And thanks, Mom, for naming me after that bastard.

All Is Forgiven

I worked up the nerve to call Lehman Brothers today and actually got through to a human being. A human being who put me through to another human being in the Human Resources Department (or what's left of it).

That nice lady looked me up in the system and, indeed, there I was, in all of my

FULLY VESTED
FULLY FUNDED
FULLY PROTECTED

glory. She then gave me a magical 800 number (well, an 866 number) at Fidelity devoted solely to people like me who had worked at Lehman. I called the number and got a bright, young, lad.

He reiterated what the lady in HR had told me. But he added some stuff. First he fixed me up with on-line access to my retirement information. But then he told me that when I retire (assuming it's age 65) I'll collect:

$849.95 per month

for the rest of my life.

On top of my social security.

And 401-ks.

I'M RICH!! RICH, I TELL YOU!!!!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! (Hey, it's about $600 more per month than I thought I was gonna get.)

So even though Lehman is in the crapper, and even though the unhappiest years of my life were spent on Wall Street, it wasn't a total loss.

That $850 a month will be some blood money I'll be happy to take.