My Retirement Plans

I have two retirement plans. The first one involves buying gold and silver because they always keep their value. Let’s put it this way: a good suit of clothes during the Roman Empire cost an ounce of gold. Today, a good suit of clothes cost an ounce of gold. I can’t think of anything else that’s held its value like precious metals.

My second retirement plan involves a shopping cart I found in an alley. I plan on living in it if my first retirement plan doesn’t work out the way I want it to. I find I can fit quite comfortably in it. This is good since I might be sleeping in it someday.

There are other things I have stored along with my shopping cart. Plastic trash bags, for instance. With a little imagination you can work wonders with them. They’ll make an ideal waterproof roof for my shopping-cart home. They also make cheap but very good raincoats. Even clothes, if it comes right down to it.

Let’s not forget the duct tape, which I believe will last for years. It’s great for repairing tears in my plastic garbage bags. Obviously this isn’t very stylish, but if I do end up living in my shopping cart, plastic garbage bags and duct tape are much more important than mere pride and dignity.

I also have a big stick. A staff, really. It’s about two inches thick and four feet long. It has multiple uses. One is as a cane, which I might need when I’m 75 years old and living in a shopping cart. It’s also a weapon, which I will need to smack other retirees attempting to steal my shopping-cart home, my plastic garbage bags, and my duct tape.

I also plan on using this stick to smack pigeons, which I’ve heard are pretty good eating. I estimate I might be eating pigeons because I doubt the $1.98 a month I’ll be getting from Social Security will buy much of anything.

I also have a Swiss Army Knife, the kind with all the implements. I’ll need it to clean the pigeons I smack with my stick. Then once I cook them on the grill I made out of clothes hangers I’ll use the knife, fork and spoon to eat the pigeon.

Let's not forget the spool of fishing line. Since I was raised near a lake, I learned how to catch crawdads, which I’ve also heard are pretty good eating. If you take a length of fishing line and put a little piece of bread dough at the end, when you drop the line into the water near the edge of a lake, after a few minutes a crawdad will grab onto the bread dough. Then up he comes and down he goes, after the appropriate amount of time on my clothes-hanger grill.

I was raised halfway in between the city and the country. Because of this, I know some of the edible wild plants. Wild onions, for example, which I think would go just fine with pigeons and crawdads. Wild bamboo has many uses. It makes great fishing poles, and when splintered makes great toothpicks, which I’ll probably need since I doubt I’ll be able to buy toothbrushes.

I also have a pipe. Since I doubt I’ll be able to afford tobacco, I’ll just take cigarettes out of ashtrays and use the leftover tobacco in them. A pipe will last for years, and it’ll save me having to buy rolling papers. I figure I can sit by a lake, smoking my pipe, with my duct-taped plastic garbage bags on my head to protect me from the rain, while I fish with my bamboo fishing pole.

I also have some boxes of baking soda, which is just wonderful stuff. It’s great for indigestion, which I might suffer from considering the fact I’ll mostly be eating pigeons and crawdads cooked with wild onions. Baking soda is great for sunburn, which I’ll probably get considering most of my time will be spent fishing at a lake or else sitting on a park bench waiting for pigeons. It’s also great for teeth and gums, and will make a fine addition to my stock of wild bamboo toothpicks.

It’s best to not put all your eggs in one basket. Backup plans are always good. I don’t like having this second plan for retirement, but since the creation of the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Bank the dollar has lost 95 percent of its value in less than 100 years, I think having my shopping cart is a good idea.

Now if only the government would cut all taxes by about 90 percent, get rid of about 90 percent of the job-destroying regulations, and stop destroying the value of our money by inflation, my – and everyone else’s – income would skyrocket. I’d have plenty of money to shove away for retirement. Everyone else would, too.

Then I could buy an RV and travel the country after I retire. On the other hand, if someday you see a guy pushing a shopping cart down the street, dressed in duct-taped plastic garbage bags, and smoking a pipe, toss him a quarter.

He’ll appreciate it, I guarantee you.

By the way, I really do know a retired guy who lives in a park. He owns a sleeping bag, some clothes, and spends a goodly amount of his social security feeding the feral cats who hang out at his camp site. He considers them his best friends.