Go Suck Eggs

If you have been following me for any length of time you are fully aware that I have been talking quite a lot about just tossing in the towel and saying "screw it, I'm done with working."

And of course, I don't just talk out of my butt. Things are doable, you know. Even if the idea is not necessarily practical.

What do I mean?

The simple fact of the matter is that between my wife and I we earn six figures a year from our jobs. We have done well for ourselves. She's been a pharmacy technician for about 35 years and she makes really good money now working for a major hospital in the behavioral health department where she's been for probably the last 3 years or so.

She was in the pharmacy at Walgreen's for about 25 years and when we got to Illinois after living many years in Wisconsin she worked at the local grocery store's pharmacy before accepting the offer at the hospital she now works for in St. Louis.

She has been working for 38 years.

As for myself, I have been working for about 35 years, starting when I was 14 years old. My career has been a bit more scattered. I spent four years in the United States Navy on the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) from 1992-1996. After that I got into manufacturing and made decent money, working for companies like Quad Graphics, Kraft Foods, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation, and Nestlé.

I did a four and a half year stint as a pest control guy for a company in New Berlin, Wisconsin called Batzner Pest Management, and was pretty good at that gig.

For the past 7 years I have worked for a company selling concrete mixer truck parts and concrete batch plant parts—I get a base salary, but my best money is from commissions earned from sales I make on the accounts I manage.

This job is also the best money I have ever made to date in my life. And together, my wife and I are making the most money we have ever made in our lives.

You couple this good money with the fact that we have made some pretty wise investment decisions that just means there is more money coming from that as well, and well...

We are simply very comfortable.

So, I told the wife tonight when she came home from work, "Congratulations." I said, "On what?" she said, "On my retirement."

She paused.

"Your retirement?"

"Yeah," I said. "I am going to turn my resignation in in June and that's it. I am done. I will be a house-husband. I will pursue my writing and my music and just do what I want to do."

She had this look on her face. But she said nothing.

"Don't worry," I told her. "I will take care of everything. Vacuuming, cleaning the house, taking care of the dishes, the laundry, cutting the grass...it's all me babe."

I went on to say you just keep on working making those big bucks and I will pursue what I need to do to fill in the gaps while I pursue my passions and dreams.

She proceeded to tell me that I should check in on the website of a popular divorce lawyer team in St. Louis that advertises often on TV. I have to admit that I was a bit taken aback.

"You mean to tell me that I can't retire?" I said, dumbfoundedly.

The bottom line, I guess, is that for me to walk away now from the money I make doing what I do would simply be a stupid idea, and she so much as told me so. Walking away from the money we make together is even dumber because it affords us all of the "extras" we enjoy because of it.

She basically told me to go sucks eggs. So, I guess I will just have to suck it up and commit myself to another two years at least until we can both practically throw in the towel and say enough is enough.

Lead image courtesy of Pixabay, user Alexas_Fotos. Easter Eggs Fun - Free photo on Pixabay