You know how so often, you think of the right thing to say five seconds too late?

Well today I was five seconds quicker than that for once.

Sliding through the grocery store, I saw one of the immoral ones that got me kicked out of my job here four years ago. I had known that seeing her was inevitable. She’s local.

She didn’t see me, and I said nothing. I went up to the checkout. I was just finishing putting my stuff on the conveyor when she slid in behind me.

“Why ALEX Vairtere,” she said. “How ARE you?”

In a conversational tone, six feet apart and through masks, I said: I am better than you left me, Ma’am …

“Huh, what? What was that?” So I gave it to her again with both barrels, just shy of a bellow.

“I SAID I’m much better than you LEFT me.”

(Which was for dead, you two-faced cow.)

After that she didn’t have anything else to say.

***

Story complete. I should stop there. Let’s pretend I did.

But.

It did come an hour or two in the wake of a phone conversation with one of the few good ones from the most recent debacle college. This woman quit right after me, and is filing against them with EEOC, and asked for my help.

I said sure.

The most interesting thing from that chat was what she did about retiring out from under them.

She split the difference, pulling half her money out in cash, and taking a half-pension going forward.

I didn’t really know that was an option, and I like it a whole hell of a lot.

Half-cash back would get me to a place of no real debt. It would get me a van. And after those two big things, I’d have plenty to get me back to a balance of cash on hand up into the five figures again. Maybe something like a year’s living expenses, plus something like a thousand a month coming in on top of that from pension, which means really about three years of float, or enough to get me to social security income too … factoring that in, it’s theoretically float forever, at a very dirty and raw standard of living.

This doesn’t account for two other bits, one good and one bad.

Bad side is, I’ve got no health insurance, and these numbers don’t account for getting it.

Good side is, not only would I be living without a job ever again, but …

I’d still have powerful incentive to establish alternative income flows. To cover necessities like doctors, and luxuries like endless gas to put in that van.

I like this better than taking a full pension and being on the hook to the system forever.

I like this almost as much as cashing the fuck out full stop.

Any event, making this call is a few months out yet. An action for the new year.

Could be I’ll find a lovely non-job between now and then, though it’s a longshot.

Could be, a lot of things

the light never stops changing.