Retirement Observations - Crazyville

The end of this week finds me worrying that we relocate to Crazyville around the time we reach retirement age. Take for example the news item about the 73 year old man from Southern Arizona who was so insane over the terms of his recent divorce that he went on a shooting rampage.

At the end of it, his ex-wife and her lawyer were both dead, as were three bystanders and the man himself. His death was a suicide. Apparently he built up his courage by practicing on the other victims. He had certainly practiced the divorce part, having been through four of them before calling it quits with the wife he shot. It’s unclear whether he tried to shoot any of his other exes.

I know what you’re thinking: “It must have been a hell of a divorce settlement.” Actually, the main issue was who got custody of their mobile home. The article did not specify whether it was a double-wide. The marriage lasted from 2002 to 2007, which made the shooter 64 to 69 during the union.

So, what made him go berserk this time around? And why now, if they split in 2007? Was the trailer that fabulously tricked out? Perhaps by the time he reached 73, this man from a farming community near Yuma had inhaled too much fertilizer. I think he simply moved closer to Crazyville as he got older.

Here’s another news item from the New York Times. A former Wall Street trader took his own life just a few days after one of his secretly taped conversations had been played in court. It supposedly implicated him in insider trading and the tape had been used to secure his cooperation in spying on his peers for the FBI.

His wife said he was “conflicted about his cooperation,” “worried about entrapping his friends” and depressed over losing his job; (his employer had found out about the spying.) This alone could explain why a 50 year old would hop on the train to Crazyville, but wait—there’s more.

Before agreeing to turn snitch, the man sought legal advice. His attorney counseled him to cooperate, but to tell no one else (again per the Times) except his rabbi and his (nonexistent) therapist. His attorney is now a chief assistant DA. Yet another example of a lawyer who helped punch the ticket to ride to suicide.

At least the trader didn’t kill his wife or others before he hung himself. Had he been ten years older, he would have been a lot closer to Crazyville and it would have ended with a lot more mess. The assistant DA should say his "thank you" prayers that the trader was fired and not retired.

If you read my Wednesday post, you’ll know I was dangerously close to reserving a seat on that Crazy train. The week ended better than it appeared it would. The second Realtors I interviewed came in with figures extremely close to the ones I’d put together and they had considerable data to support their proposal. That was the good news.

The bad news is their laundry list of things to fix. Beyond the financial consequences, there’s the net result that I won’t be able to list the house for at least two more weeks. Say goodbye to any buyers who want to close before their kids’ school terms begin.

On top of that, the agents brought their stager to tell me what more I need to thin/rearrange before anyone sees my gem of a home. Once again, the good news: I feel we’ll work well together. The bad news: I have about one third more furniture than he envisions being here when the house is ready to show.

Obviously, I plan to sell/donate a fair amount before we move, but I can’t stop my prepping to hold a tag sale. Where do the entertainment unit, tall curio cabinet, small TV cabinet, second sideboard, six high chairs and four doll carriages go in the meantime? (And that’s just the larger items.) I’m sure I’ll figure this out, but for the moment, it leaves me in a very precarious state of mind.

This is a dangerous place to be when one’s real estate agent says this about the listing process: “Once you put your house on the market, it no longer belongs to you; it belongs to the public.” Public indeed.

Fair warning to my husband: next stop Crazyville. Though I haven’t been dealing with any attorneys (yet), I have a feeling real estate agents will face the same risks once I get on that train.

Unless of course there’s a bar car that serves good quality red wine.

Retirement Downsizing - Getting to Zero

Today was D-day on my plans to downsize and sell our house. I met with the first group of realtors that I’m interviewing to decide where I’ll list. Since I’ve been attending a lot of open houses in my area as part of my “intelligence gathering,” I knew that the current trend is to strip the house to the architectural equivalent of its underwear. Turns out, they really want it to be in its birthday suit.

I’ve been decluttering and packing and labeling for weeks. But unless you saw the house before I started, you’d have no idea how much has been removed. I’ve been operating on the “s - - t flows downhill” premise. That is, I started on the third floor and moved all of its excess down to the next level or lower. Eventually, everything deemed expendable found its way to the basement, where one room has been turned into what looks like a bomb shelter after the explosion.

Today’s tag team of realtors told me to keep on decluttering and to pack up all my dolls. I have an antique doll collection. Some are displayed in glass enclosed cases; some are posed in children’s and doll’s furniture. I got a reprieve on the ones that are encased. I assume that once the others have been packed away, there will be no reason to keep their empty furniture on display. (Joe, it looks like you were right after all.)

Part of the agents’ rationale for this is that I’m going to have to pack it all up when I move anyway. True. I’m also going to have to pack up my husband’s Jockey shorts, but that doesn’t mean I expect him to go commando for the next few months.

Perhaps it’s just the contrarian in me, but I don’t understand the psychology of convincing someone this is a house their family will want to make into their home by pretending the people living here now have not made it theirs. The open houses that are professionally staged appear sterile. Or, as I like to put it, they look like the house has had a lobotomy.

I’d much rather look at a house that has some warmth, that seems lived in. We’re not in ancient Sparta, after all. And I'd like it to have a little more personality than Jack Nicholson did at the end of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Besides, how many people really want to be able to roll a bowling ball down their kitchen counter top anyway?

Don’t get me wrong. I know you have to leave some things to the imagination. And I understand that pictures of our entire extended family can be a distraction. I packed them up long ago. Well, most of them. I have one picture of each of our closer relatives still on display. That adds to about a dozen, but they’re interspersed with other items on a wall full of built in bookcases.

I’m willing to pack up those family photos, too, if I’m forced to do so. But if you think I’m packing up the ones of my deceased cats, or rolling the custom made pottery jars with their ashes downhill to the basement bomb shelter, think again. There are some things that are just non-negotiable.

I’d sooner put away my wine rack, and you know how likely that is to happen. Speaking of which, I think it’s time to sit back with a nice glass of Italian red. After all, dear Scarlet, tomorrow is another day. And another real estate agent is coming in the morning. Can't wait.