This week Marv and Rachel face a thought many people face in their 60’s (or 50’s or 70’s, but this is called The New 60, so we’re sticking with 60). Just a simple chore, like looking for a pair of scissors, reveals to them that they are rattling around their house now that the kids are grown up and are on their own. My wife and I faced a similar situation 8 years ago and here’s how that went down. We were in our house, the kids had moved away, the school taxes were ridiculous, although we had no kids in school, but we loved our house and all its space. A new apartment complex opened up in the town just north of us. Despite my wife’s protestations to the contrary, I made an appointment, “just to look.” We walked inside an unfinished unit, with unpainted wooden beams and sheets of plastic up, it was a mess. I was ready to forget about it, when my wife came up to me and said, “Let’s take it.” We did and it was one of the best decisions we made. It also occurred to me that the real estate developers see us coming, The baby boomers are at the age when they’re ready to trade their homes for apartments, and the developers say, “Let’s build a place in a town with low school taxes because they have no interest in that, we’ll give them amenities like a yoga studio (‘cause old people like yoga) and they won’t have to worry about shoveling their driveways, and look, here comes a couple of suckers right now! Will Al and Joanne go in that direction? Only time will tell. John, on the other hand, completely upended this cliche, by building his own house in the woods and chopping down trees for firewood. Ahh, different strokes for different folks.

Our other strip deals with a phenomenon known to men of a certain age. We get bored and restless since we no longer have full-time jobs. Some of us take up cooking and eventually we want to impress our partners. (I cannot speak for John’s cooking skills except to say he has made me a mean toasted bagel with cream cheese and nova that would put Zabar’s to shame). So we proudly announce we’re making dinner, and then, just like when we learned how to diaper our children years ago, we learn we’re doing it all wrong. I have, in the past, been accused of such crimes as using the wrong container of blueberries, the wrong jar of peanut butter, the wrong kind of milk, and no, any “milk” that comes from a nut or a soybean is not milk! Okay? Forget about the fact that while many of us have just taken this on, our partners have been doing it for years. We just know we’re doing it the right way. The only concession I will give to my dear wife of 38 years is that I make a complete mess, on the floor, beneath the kitchen counter, on the counter itself, on and underneath my seat while eating, and most egregiously, I never, ever, use the splatter guard! If you can’t relate to this comic, chances are you’ve never tried to cook.

That’s it for this week. We wish you a Happy 2023 and despite the problems outlined above, try your hand at cooking guys. It’s fun. Until you get to the clean up part.

See you next week.

Andy and John