I have no idea how we got on the topic, but when we were together last week, WeedWoman and I decided that, if we end up as old lady widows, we’re going to sell most of our shit, pack the rest of it, pool our resources and buy a condo in Florida together.
For reasons I can’t quite explain, our having said this out loud to each other is strangely comforting to me.
None of us wants to end up alone. Okay, maybe not none of us, but certainly not I, and certainly not WeedWoman. She is my best friend, and I can very easily envision our living out our proverbial golden years in a lovely harmony. I think we’ll make great roommates.
I picture us in a condo in a mid-sized, western shore town in the Sunshine state, where someone else comes to mow the tiny squares of lawn by the front doors and we spend most evenings watching the sun go down over whatever stretch of beach is nearest to us. Punkin’ Pie and Beanie will come to visit us with their families. We’ll find fun things to do to keep us busy; I can see WeedWoman being active in local gardening groups while I lead old lady aqua aerobics and old lady yoga classes at the local Y.
I’m hoping we can find a suitable living arrangement relatively close to a grocery store (or find a grocery store that delivers) because I don’t want for either of us to have to drive much. We’ll be old then, and I’ve been on the roads in Florida as a young woman in charge of all my faculties and it scared the shit out of me; I sure as hell don’t want to give others reason to worry for their safety because a blue haired Chili is behind the wheel.
It is a well-documented fact that women tend to outlive men. WeedWoman and I both married men who are older than we are, and we’re not kidding ourselves that there will never come a time when we have to face a certain amount of our lives without our much beloved husbands. Our planning our old-ladyhoods together isn’t so much a happy anticipation, though it is that; it is a confirmation that our friendship is strong enough to sustain us through to the end.
There’s really nothing more that I could wish for.
Hell with that delicate and peaceful yoga type stuff- old ladies are capable of getting away with TONS of presumably fun crotchety and malevolent behavior. When/If the time comes, take full advantage. “Test drive” a car across a state line as fast as it’ll go in reverse. Push a watermelon down an up escalator, and if the “Man” gives you a hard time, tell him you dropped it. Cause a scene at the UPS Store by trying to ship adult undergarments to your local television anchorpeople. I’m actually a bit envious.
Won’t you be our neighbor?
I’ll drop by with chocolate martinis, wot?
Yes, please!!
Come on down! Just maybe hold back on humming “Camelot” when you roll into Clearwater Beach with all your portable goods.
And don’t forget to consider what that westering sun shining in your wonderful view window and bouncing off the placid waters of the Gulf of Mexico can do to your electric(air conditioning) bill.
I can see us now, wheel chair on top ot the pick up loaded with shit. The first thing we’ll do is get a plastic pink flamingo! Well, maybe not the very first thing.
I’d love to be a bad influence in person, but nothing in the world would get me to move to Florida. I’m too averse to conservatives and sunshine.