Life is backwards… Heck, not just backwards, ass backwards! They treat you nice at first, a good thing, ’cause you’re pretty much helpless. But through your teens they turn you loose, which is sometimes a bit early and a bad thing. But the main thing is you’re expected to become independent, which means you’re allowed to drive, provided you keep the speed down to the limit +5, no burnouts, and all the wheels down all the time. And you’re expected to pay for the vehicle, the fuel, and insurance and everything else too. Thus most of this adult “freedom” tend to be driving back and forth to work. “Freedom” becomes a battle for survival, fixing the car in the snow and dark so you can go back to work tomorrow to make a pittance to buy more gas and parts.

Around 50, the power shifts… You’re vested for a pension and if you’re lucky you can keep your health insurance for around $100 a month. You slowly realize that you could tell the boss off, turn in your resignation, and laugh your ass off as you head out the door… And you’d have the last laugh. Then all that stuff you worked your butt off for they offer to give you- Social Security at 62, Medicare at 65, and they damn near force that social security on you at 70! Now I’m not complaining, but why couldn’t we have healthcare when we’re sick and a guaranteed income when we’re unemployed before we’re old… I mean, young people need help sometimes too.

So I’m doing my best to adapt to the new reality of turning 70 and with social security and pension making more money that I’ve ever earned, and that’s before I even count investment income. I toyed with ordering a new “Vette, still a bargain as GM is holding the base price to a bit over $60K… But couldn’t find a roof rack for a “Vette that would carry my 16 foot canoe. So back to Plan B, which is VW Group’s Plan A for us aging VW drivers, buy an Audi. Despite VW’s whining that we diesel drivers are too rich for VWs and have been depriving them of their just(?) Audi and Porsche profit margins for decades, three Audi dealers totally and utterly failed to put me in the driver’s seat of an Audi. Hell, their inventory is so screwed they can’t even find their Audis!

So I guess I’m not about to achieve at least the mobile appearance of a “rich bitch”. Maybe I can dump some surplus income on a Transit Connect van for winter trips south with a motorcycle, but you can buy a loaded one for $30k.. So guess I’ll have to keep adopting more old motorcycles and lavish them with tires, batteries, expensive oil, and unobtainium parts…