The people who know me best can attest to my one great skill: efficiency of motion. As I’ve gotten older, my movements have become increasingly calculated. Trips to the boy’s room tend to have a sense of urgency to them, as I’ve waited as long as possible to see if another and as yet unseen need or want can be addressed along the way. Whenever I get out of my easy chair, others turn and watch (partly from the symphony of sounds – creaks, cracks, groans and toots) because they know the trip must be an important one. If I walk to my car and get in, only to realize I’ve forgotten something, it’s usually going to have to wait until the next trip. (Unless my wife answers the horn).

I figure that at my age and in my current state (Arizona), each step is potentially my last; I’m not wasting ’em.  People speak of the inexorable march towards old age and ultimate death; this sounds depressing to me, not only for the inevitable result, but also for the considerable effort implied in getting there. “March”, to me, is a month. In my vocabulary’s verb closet, “march” sits tucked in a corner – unused, dusty and cobwebbed. No, death can come to me like a thief in the night, or a home invasion in broad daylight; I won’t be hard to find.

“I want my gin and tonic.” – Google Images

Sadly, my philosophy of sloth is, in part, merely that; I still have to work to maintain the lifestyle (impoverished) to which my wife has become accustomed.  The movements necessary to appease customers, creditors and the frau, therefore, make the ones I have remaining that much more precious.  As a member of the fifty plus club I am considered a time bomb ticking toward the inevitable explosion. Well, you don’t shake a bomb; you don’t even want to move it, lest it go off. You leave it alone. You let it sit.

I know in the past that some of the Struggler’s assertions have seemed somewhat harebrained. (As an example, the Gin and Tonic for Dinner Diet didn’t quite pan out: Now I’m fat and an alcoholic). This plan is gold, however; frankly, I don’t see how it can go wrong.