December 19, 2012
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SUCH IS LIFE FOR THE RETIRED
It turns out three hours is a lot of time to kill at a mall if you don't have anything special in mind to buy. We took one of our cars into the shop this morning for what was estimated to be three hours' work. The shop is 40 minutes from our house, so we drove both cars down and then drove the other car to a mall. I thought we could easily spend three hours there, not remembering that Sam is not a shopper for the long haul. We tramped the mall from one end to the other. I bought myself some Christmas presents (clothes). Sam found a shirt and a hat - his Christmas presents. That shot about an hour. We went back to the car dealer and of course the car wasn't ready, so we went to lunch. Got back to the shop and the car still wasn't ready. I came home and Sam waited. I'm tempted to say it was a morning shot, but we did get some good maintenance work done on the car, a lunch out, some clothes, and I didn't have to wait at the dealership three hours, which I would have had to do in the old days when Sam was gainfully employed and I was in charge of taking cars to repair shops. In Pennsylvania in the olden days vehicles had to be inspected twice a year, and when we had three vehicles I had to take each one in at least twice a year, in addition to times they needed repair, and one or the other of them always needed repair. Michigan doesn't require inspections (the automobile is king in Michigan), so at least we don't have that to deal with anymore.
