I cannot put into words how much I love being retired.
After 40 years of working on Volvo and Mercedes Benz automobiles my distaste for the modern automobile was getting unbearable. Having my own shop for 21 of those 40 years was ok, but my interest in spending half my day on a laptop jumping through hoops getting check engine and service lights to go off, dealing with maddened customers battling the California Smog Check System, and the overall unfriendliness to business in California, the interest in keeping the shop had waned years ago. We had done well financially and I was able to retire at 58, 2 years ago.
I brought my tools home but threw ALL of my scan tools into the garbage can. Only the folks that have known me over the years know that I was ever an auto tech. When asked what I did before retirement I say the same thing that Maxwell Smart would say...I was in the greeting card business. We take my wife's Buick La Crosse to the steelership for service and I just say "fix it".
I am never bored unless I choose to be. I do eat too much and exercise too little. I was done long before I hung up the wrenches so I had nothing to get used to except for enjoying life daily. It was like moving to a resort and doing what you want every day, 'cept when the missus tells you otherwise.
BTW, Mrs.-T still works, from home, and says she likes it...a concept that is completely foreign to me.
