MSN: 10 business Ideas for Early Retirees

Life or Business Coach-This one is easy. There is a long tradition of young people sitting at the foot of their elders and learning about how great the world was way back when and how the youngsters have turned it all to piss. I want a life coach who isn't afraid to shoot straight with me and let me know when I'm doing something that he would have considered to be nancying around in his day, and I'll tell him that that sort of thing isn't PC anymore, and he'll tell me to run laps or something. I'm getting a life coach.

Retirement Financial Planner-I went to a financial planner who was retired, but he advised me to spend it all on booze on women. I didn't think it was sound advice. I suggested that maybe I should put it away in a 401K, which was followed by a long conversation about the gold standard. Then he brought a shovel and started digging a hole in my yard in which to bury my money.

Event Planner-Hey, you're getting up there in years, why don't you take a break by doing something stressful? I guess it might shorten your life if you're into that sort of thing, but otherwise, I don't know if arguing about cupcakes is how I'd want to spend my retirement.

Home Stager-I'm guessing this means staging a home, like putting in carpeting to cover nasty wood floors and maybe throwing some afghans over some couches. Perhaps taking out those fashionable new stainless steel appliances for a good old General Electric refrigerator. Honestly, home staging works. We wanted to buy ever staged home we entered, and they were all too expensive, which means that home stagers are probably payed a hell of a lot of money. We should all go into it. Wait, does that work? Can we all have the same job? Probably, we just need boot straps big enough for everyone.

Bed and Breakfast Operator-This isn't the worst idea in the world. You can cook breakfast, rattle on about the good old days to people who are paying for the charm of hearing about the good old days. And, when you get bored of that, you can say racially insensitive things to make those charming young people feel very uncomfortable. Uh, sort of a real thing there.

Cleaning Service Provider-Because you know what people miss when they retire? House chores. When they don't have the chance to vacuum their own rug they can slog on over to the neighbor's house to vacuum there's. Living the dream.

Home Inspector-This is actually a really great idea. You see, the job of a home inspector is to tell you everything that could go wrong with your house. It's kind of a perfect set up.

Inspector: You see those shingles. You need to replace them.

M: How many?

Inspec: All of them.

M: How soon?

Inspec: Probably within the first three months or your house will start leaking or one of the shingles will fall off and kill you, or...

M: I get it.

Inspec: Now you see that railing. Loose. You'll need to fix that immediately or you'll probably slip one morning and die.

M: Oh.

Inspec: The furnace is old.

M: Sigh. So we're paying for this?

Etsy based business operator-Listen, I only recently learned what Etsy was. Next thing you know you'll be recommending that they start a business youtubing themselves blogging in the nude to gangnam style. Sure I'd watch it, but I'm not sure that you're average retiree knows what you're talking about. Keep it simple MSN.

Daycare Provider-This mainly involves using light brights and melting crayons while convincing children that play-doh is not a culinary delight. Sounds reasonable. I jest. I've taken care of kids. It's terrible. They're like sharks. They smell blood in the water. If you are going to be a daycare provider you better have some serious love in your heart and an extremely low child to teacher ratio. I once witness four kids eat a daycare provider alive. I kid you not.

Tutor-When I was five they sent me to a reading tutor because they thought I was stupid. The story does not end happily. The tutor merely confirmed their suspicions. Okay, it didn't quite go down like that. I remember being rewarded with a Skittle each time I finished a page without making any errors. The woman's name was Sacscen. She was no doubt some sort of early retiree. And I'm certain if I went back through the list above I could create a much different story, but this is the one I've chosen to tell, and the one that you're listening to. I was a damned magnificent reader, and I ate Skittles as if every Thursday was Halloween for those few months that I was tutored.

Top 5 Ways we go on Dec 21 2012

1. Giant hidden planet appears from nowhere and crashes into the earth. Listen, if you're artsy, you've already seen this scenario play out in Melancholia. In short, Kirsten Dunst is really depressed as is everyone else in Denmark if this is what passes for film there.

Bright Side: On the bright side a planet sort of slowly careening towards the earth would all give us time to finish wrapping all those presents we bought for ourselves on black Friday. It wouldn't be a sudden type thing, so we'd also have time to go get the car washed and kiss our loved ones go sky diving or watch the entire series of Saved by the Bell in footie pajamas.

Dark Side: It would be kind of sad to have that looming inevitability of catastrophic destruction. I'm not saying it would ruin my day, I'm just saying it would put a damper on it. Like if someone said, "Looks like you've got a case of the Mondays," I might respond, "that's because we're all going to die," but maybe the guy would be wearing a funny shirt of a dog saying something that incorporates a pun on the word bark.

Final Thoughts: I'm kind of a fan of this one. We all want our lives to be like the movies. Sure, some of us want to be James Bond, but who doesn't want to be a rattled Keifer Sutherland taking horse tranqus in the stables? Yeah, me neither, maybe this isn't as good as it sounded.

Chances it happens: 50 percent

Here's to hoping it's at least a V-6. 

2. Yellowstone National Park Erupts.

Bright Side: I'm guessing we get one of those warning type things when all the animals start pouring out of the park because animals always know first, like how dogs are always barking at the damn door before someone can even get up the steps. Like, give it a rest dogs, I'm still twenty steps away. This would give some folks in Wyoming sometime to reflect on their ranches or how they were right about wanting to kill off all the wolves or something as they stormed through their back yards.

Dark Side: I don't know if I want to live in a world where volcanic ash blots out all the light and leads to a slow extinction. It kind of sounds similar to my understanding of the game backgammon. Besides which, I'm not even sure this one works because Monsanto could probably develop some sort of bean that could grow in the dark, cold, sunless world. Sure it would make you grow fangs and wings, but I think that's a small price to pay for the continued existence of the species.

Final Thoughts: For Americans, this wouldn't be a bad way to go. People have always compared us to Rome, and the Mount Vesuvius would comparisons would just be so rich. Granted, the Monsanto lead army of flying monkeys probably wouldn't appreciate the irony, but somewhere, somebody would. Or not.

Chances it happens: 25 percent.

I need Rembert to explain this guy to me.

Aliens-Alien invasion. Did we invent aliens or did aliens invent us? That's the provocative question possibly asked by the new Ridlley Scott movie that I didn't see. However, I've never let a lack of knowledge stop me from putting things "in quotes."

Bright side-There are going to be a whole heck of a lot of people who will feel vindicated. "See, I told you we were going to be enslaved or annihilated by alien overlords." And you'll just have to sit there and look at your tin foil neighbor smiling because he did have it right all along. And, maybe now he'll give you back that saw and wrench that he stole to fashion a spaceship of his own.

Dark Side-Looking at the guy smile. No one likes to be proved wrong, and a lot of us would look foolish. Plus, wouldn't it kind of be expected? We already did this during the broadcast of War of the Worlds. It would be kind of anti-climactic, and you'd probably have a lot of people asking what took them so long or complaining that suspense wise the invasion had nothing on Independence Day.

Final Thoughts-This seems like a good one, but I'm afraid it's been made too hackneyed by overuse. Maybe the aliens would all be friendly like E.T. But honestly, wouldn't we all be a little disappointed with that?

Chances it happens: 13 percent.

Is that a solar flare? Or is Jean Grey just exiting the sun?

4. A massive solar flare

Bright Side: This one just writes itself.

Dark Side: Too easy.

Final Thoughts-(Spends time reading up on solar flares. Goes to bed scared of everything).

Chanes it happens .05 percent .

5. Asteroids-The plus side of asteroids is that we all know from Deep Impact and that Bruce Willis movie that all we have to do is fly nukes into them to destroy them, or the American flag or something. My memory is a bit foggy, but I'm pretty sure in a fight between the end of existence and an asteroid we kick as- like we did on the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Are any of your referents real? What is real, I say?

Bright Side: Well, I think I already covered that. We could have an overwhelming sense of pride in our scientific abilities, perhaps it would unite us for a few days. Then again, it turns out we don't really have a sophisticated detection system for near earth objects, so we'd probably just go out dinosaur style.

Final Thoughts-It seems to me that it would create a nice sense of symmetry for us to go out like the dinosaurs. Though, to be fair, I'm not sure we'd do it with as much style. 

Chances of this happening: 8 percent

Ten things, okay, five more things I hate about you

6. Ignoring phone calls from people. Don't get me wrong, I love it when you ignore phone calls from other people when we're together. It reassures me that my presence is paramount in your small universe. However, when I'm calling you, and it rings and rings, I know that you're sitting with a cup of coffee staring out a window, ignoring my call as you've ignored so many others, or laughing with friends, or some other lover, while my name flashes across a screen like a voice from a distant room.

7. I don't like how you're good at riding a bike, and how once you made a joke about the fact that I don't know how to ride a bike, because I'm awful at riding bikes, and I always like to feel like I'm good at things. And watching you, pedaling down the street with a determined look in your eye reminds me that I am not good at this, or anything.

8. I don't like the fact that we don't kiss. Sometimes we sit across from each other at a table and talk about the weather or the ocean in winter or the way that someone we know nods too frequently when people are speaking. And then it goes silent, and we stare at each other across the table and salt shakers and then you'll go back to talking about the weather or our mutual friend instead of leaning across the table to kiss me.

9. I hate how sometimes you'll say a few words in a foreign language. And I'll pretend to understand, or maybe I will understand, but I will really know is that you're telling me that I don't know enough about the world or you, and that there are vast and unexplored regions of your soul. Or at least that I am ignorant.

10. I hate that your face, in certain lights, is flawless. I hate that when I stare you at you across a candle lit table that I am certain that I am in the exact right place at the exact right time and that life is a meaningful proposition or endeavor just because we are sitting here, fencing over the last piece of bread at some dumpy Italian place on the corner of fifth and Market.

11. And I hate how your face leads me to an idea of another universe far away, or near. I don't understand physics, and the possibility that a universe exists where you and I are not sitting across a table at an Italian restaurant, or not not kissing across salt shakers. And it nearly moves me to tears that there is a possibility that thousands of universes exist in which  you and I never met, or parted ways before today. And then I remember what I love about you. I love that you are here right now, watching me write these words, our fingers intertwined, here and now, deeply familiar, in this otherwise strange universe. 

Ten things I hate about you

1) Your subscription to GQ. Sometimes I'll be getting ready in the morning, not speedily, though not without grace, and the sun will be coming in the window at a certain angle that makes the morning feel warm and friendly. And then I will look down into the basket next to the sink and see a GQ magazine. And I will start flipping through the pages, slowly at first, then frantically, trying to find a person who is not beautiful. By the end of the session, not more than five minutes, I'll have come to the conclusion that the world is comprised primarily of beautiful people and that I am not one of them.

2) The way that you're always laughing when people are talking. Don't get me wrong, I love it when you laugh when I'm talking. It confirms my suspicion that I have a pleasant personality and am funny and witty. However, when I see you talking to other people, I notice that you laugh frequently with them as well. And I am left to wonder whether I am the sort of person who is uproariously funny, or whether you are just the type of person who laughs frequently. This puts me in a sort of personal conundrum that I'd prefer to avoid.

3) Singing along to music when we're driving in the car. To be fair, it's something that I always do. However, I'd prefer that you not sing along because it tends to interrupt whatever it is that I'm saying, or at least it feels like it's interrupting what I'm saying. And I'm suddenly aware that you would rather sing along to a song than listen to the most important person in the world, that is me, deliver a disquisition on the nature of the universe, or politics, or someone I work with at the office, or how nice the leaves are on a particular oak. And I am forced to ask myself whether I am the most important person in the universe or whether I am just one more leaf on a dying tree.


4) I don't like that you take so much time drying your hair. It's especially annoying because when you don't dry your hair, certain days in summer, it does this sort of half-curled thing that is damn near irresistible. And I'm not saying you should never dry your hair, but I'm just saying that worse things have happened to the world than you just letting it dry in the humid air of an endless summer night.

5) I don't like how you sometimes make me feel awkward in conversation. I am generally very adept at conversing, but sometimes, when I'm trying to talk with you I will feel like a horse's ass, which is not how I like to feel. I will find myself stumbling over things to say and repeating a story that I'd told you three days before, or asking again just what state your mother is from. And I don't know why I have to feel so inept, and why you can't sometimes throw me a lifeline and ask me again where my mother is from or mention again that the weather outside is delightful.

Also this:

Gymnastics

You are taking your child to gymnastics class. She's two. You don't know what to expect. You watch gymnastics once every four years, and other than being vaguely in love and attracted to the whole of the 96 Olympic squad you've sort of lost track of the sport since you gave it up at age four. That is, if you ever actually went to gymnastics class. You always tell people that you did, but you're not sure if it was true or if you just watched your sister at gymnastics class. Were you good on the balance beam? Was there something vaguely feminine about being in gymnastics? You don't worry about that now. Now is the time to see what your daughter can do in a gymnastics class. No part of you expects it to be amazing. However, maybe it could be?

We start the class by running around in a circle. She runs around in a circle like she was born for it, stepping neatly on the dots they've placed on the large blue mat. Some other kid of eastern European descent veers off and starts high tailing it for the warm up room. A little boy sprints straight across the blue mat, totally ignoring the very obvious circles that I'm also half assedly jogging around on. She starts to veer toward the middle, but I can tell it's just because she's tired. She prances more than runs. Her heels kick up and then are splayed out, so that her legs aren't really moving forward but kind of sideways. We'll work on it when we get home. She's enthusiastic.

We head over to the mats to get ready for the rope swing. The Eastern European girl has gotten it together and clambers her way up onto the rope and swings enthusiastically through the air. Sadie's turn is next, and I realize I'll have to teach her about not following the good kid. She climbs up but wants to hang on to the teacher rather than the rope. The teacher has to guide her through the whole swinging process. Familial shame. The little boy is jumping around on a ball and can't be coaxed into swinging at all. A pair of twin girls arrive, Charlotte and Jane, names I'd have chosen, and Jane, nearly a head shorter than Sadie though a couple of months older climbs up to the rope like a champ. She needs help with the swinging but less help. However, the mother can't really enjoy it as she has to wrangle her other daughter who has wandered off to inspect some other bouncy toys. At least we don't have that.

The little EE girl swings like a champ again. Sadie has spent the downtime climbing up a small incline mat and then carefully climbing off it. I think she's supposed to roll, but she's decided that it's much safer to climb down the thing. She may not be Dominique Dawes. On the second rope swing, Sadie, clings to the rope a bit harder, though she eventually winds up crying and saying that her hands are hurting. We'll build up the callouses at home.

We move from the rope swing to the balance beams in the next room. The EE starts to do it, and then kind of loses her focuses and begins crying. The little boy makes it across the first balance beam but gets distracted at the slide like the toddler he is. Sadie patiently waits her turn and then climbs across the balance beam like a champ. She narrates the thing, "stepping uh toes" "Step over toes." The child is a verbal genius. She balks at the slide, and I have to pick her up and put her on the second balance beam. The second beam is marked by a variety of nations flags to signify our wonderful diversity. Sadie mentions each flag as she steps over them. The twins are up and around the beam in no time, expertly moving through the entire course. For cute kids they sure are obnoxious.

By the second round the EE has decided that she wants to jump on the trampoline. Sadie starts crying midway through the beam because she's having a tough time on the beam. Familial shame.

We move to the sliding portion of the day. At this point the EE, who was closer to three, totally loses her shi- and has to be taken out of the class by her mom. The remaining parents feel a smug satisfaction that now matter how poor their kids are at somersaults, at least they didn't break down. Sadie has to be coaxed into sliding down a ramp with the help of the teacher and then executing a somersault, followed by walking her feet up a wall. She is not 100 percent pure athlete, but I still kind of like her. She's supposed to climb into a bunch of large rings next, but she decides to climb below them instead and then asks me to lift her into them.

Little Jane slides down with less help than Sadie and throws herself on the mat face first while attempting a somersault. She follows that up by walking to the wall and starting to walk her feet up on her own. Nobody likes Jane despite the fact that she's two and adorable. Jane then climbs through the three large towers and is joined by Charlotte. Their mom says something about joining Sadie, but I can tell she just wants me to move her along.

The little boy has tapped out by the second round. He's decided that a little ladder is more interesting than somersaults. I can't blame him.

We move to the uneven bars, the EE a distant memory, Sadie balks at climbing onto one bar to reach another, then cries and says her arms hurt when I hang her from the second one. Then she refuses to even try the rings. Familial shame. Jane takes a break from swinging on the bars to earn a Master's Degree in something useful like accounting. I finally convince Sadie to at least do the climbing wall, but she does it slowly and Jane's mom has to tell Charlotte to wait while Sadie takes her turn. I get it, she's slow. At least she can say "civic duty and Charlottesville and Monticello and ephelant." We're working on that last one.

The last activity is running across a trampoline. Sadie distinguishes herself by waiting her turn like a champ. She runs to the top and sits on the mat waiting for her name to be called. These other hellions just want to run ahead, but she dutifully waits. Sometimes she waits even when it is her turn, but I remind everyone that she's only one, except Jane, who has taken a break from her Master's to prove the existence of a fourth dimension in space. Sadie runs across the trampoline like a puppy chasing butterflies, or like a one-year old running across a trampoline. If it doesn't make you smile then you don't have a soul. Jane is not sure what she thinks about the nature of eternal souls, or at least that's what I can extrapolate as she runs across the trampoline like a puppy chasing another puppy.

The class finished with a medal ceremony. Sadie's in a make up class, so I know she's going to kill it. She's going to hold up the torch and show these other kids how you get a medal. They give the first medal to the little boy, who, after a moment of coaxing, holds it up along with the makeshift paper torch like a little champ. The twins go next, Jane asks for an actual torch just to show that she can. Her mother smiles and we talk about how shy kids can be at home, but I can tell that she secretly hates me for having such a verbally advanced child. Sadie goes up to the podium next and appears confused. Familial shame. She starts swinging the paper torch in front of her, and, if I know her, she's saying "amazing" as she generally does when she has something to twirl.

After class the rest of the parents stand around to talk about whatever it is parents talk about after class. I put Sadie's shoes on and get up to go out. I notice after two steps that I've put her sweatshirt on inside out, but I figure the moms will just chalk it up to dad's first gymnastics class. I hide her anyway as we leave reminding her that we're not to show weakness in front of these people. I briefly debate doing a somersault across the hood of my car but refrain, because I am old and my everything hurts. Sadie smiles and asks for a snack.