My husband I think must have a lot of free time on his hands at work these days.  I’m all for free time at work.  I think that should be scheduled into everyone’s days because free time is what helps make the world go a little bit faster when you’re someplace you don’t particularly want to be.  You would think that if he had free time on his hands at work he would call his loving, adoring wife, but no.  He surfs the Internet.  He daydreams.  He drinks tons of coffee.  But his daydreams and surfing actually sort of benefits me too.  He looks online for places that we can go retire when the time comes.  So far, in his mind, we’ve retired in three different countries and at least four different states.

 Our original retirement plans were to move back to Virginia where my husband is from.  He’s got a big piece of land tucked away on the side of a mountain.  Sounds charming, right?  Well, on that big piece of land tucked away on the side of that mountain there are also like twelve tons of rusted out cars and four tons of rotting trailers.  It’s not as charming as I might have described.  We would have to spend our entire retirement clearing out a decent place just to build our empty nest.  It would be easier to move the rusting cars and trailers together to make a sort of rotting hamster tunnel.  For years we had seriously considered moving to this land that he has but recently, because of the growing crime in the area, my husband has changed his mind.

 About a month ago my husband came home with something he had printed from the Internet.  It seemed like it was from a subdivision.  I thought we were going to go look at houses because right now we’re just renting.  As he pointed to the still available plots that he had chosen for us I noticed something that said, “Beach Front”.  How odd.  We live in the middle of nowhere Louisiana that’s surrounded by soybean fields.  People down here are known to dig massive ponds to build up the land around new subdivisions but no one ever calls it “beach front property”.  I asked him where this wonderful subdivision was being built.  “A bit south of here,” he told me.  We kept on looking at the amenities this subdivision had to offer like a clubhouse and a nine hole golf course.  I knew we couldn’t afford it but I humored him and kept on looking.  “So where exactly is this?” I asked.  “(cough) Belize.”  We crossed that one off our list.

 A couple of weeks ago he called me from work to tell me of this great piece of land that he found in Montana.  I would love to move to Montana, it’s gorgeous there.  I think everyone should be required to visit there at least once in his or her lives.  I don’t remember how much the property was, but it seemed reasonable for the amount of land that went with it.  A stream ran through the corner of the property and in my mind I built us a log cabin that had perpetual smoke billowing from the chimney.  He, in his mind, built a huge barn with horse and in the field he put some cattle or cows or something.  Then he started building a bunk house for all of our ranch hands that I was supposed to cook and clean for.  I think that when I retire I would like someone to do that for me.  I asked him if maybe we could just manage the ranch ourselves.  No, we need all sorts of help with the horses and cattle.  Apparently he, again in his mind, bought a thousand head of cattle and a bunch of horses.  I don’t want to wear hip waders to walk through cow poop in my old age.  I’m going to try to steer clear of orthopedic shoes, but I know that I don’t want to wear anything in black rubber.

 Last night my husband came home with his latest plan for retirement.  It’s an island in some Alaskan river called Sixteen Mile Island.  I started to get into this fantasy with him.  I started talking about how we should get a pontoon boat and some snowmobiles with a trailer attached to them so we can have transportation.  He asked why we needed a pontoon boat.  “For supplies,” I replied.  He kind of laughed at me for thinking so practically.  “We’ll have our supplied flown in,” he responded.  I asked him if he thought we were going to be rich in retirement.  “Well, duh.”  That’s what he told me.  Maybe he’s holding out on some oil rich land or a diamond mine that he failed to mention in our wedding vows.

 Come to think of it, my husband knows that we’ll be able to afford it.  He, in his mind, thinks that I’m still thirty.  Every birthday that I have I turn thirty all over again.  Now I’m thirty-four and still thirty in his mind.  It’s not that he’s trying to do me a favor by calling me younger than what I am.  He’s doing it so either he won’t have to try to remember how old I am or so that I will have to work the rest of my life to afford him his luxurious retirement.  Granted, he deserves it, but I don’t want to be a perpetual sugar momma either.