Fergus and the Retirement Gremlins

Fergus had gremlins in his head. Retirement gremlins. It was like having mice in the attic, or a monkey on his back. They wouldn’t leave him alone. They were the last things he thought of when he fell asleep at night, and the first things he thought of when he woke up. They never let up, even in his dreams.

“Remember how you could hardly wait to retire,” they gloated, “Remember all of the wonderful ideas you had? Where are they now?”

“Years from now,” Fergus worried, “I’ll still be doing this.” He imagined himself, a stooped old man, trudging along, saying, “What will I do when I retire?” It was not too far-fetched, he already had the stoop, and the trudge.

After the supermarket incident, Fergus knew he would have to change his approach to retirement.

“Take it a little slower,” Clare told him yesterday. “Be still. Meditate for a while. Start with what you know. It will come to you.”

Fergus knew she was right. He tried to recall what she’d said. The words, “Start with what you know,” stuck in his mind.

Fergus reflected on this. What he knew best was this house. He helped build it. He knew every nook and cranny. He wandered through the rooms, trying to get ideas. He went to his den and looked at his collection of science books. Maybe he could go back to university, get his doctorate, become a research scientist. Nah, too late for that. He ventured down to the basement, where years ago he started to build a boat—it was still there, partly finished. He turned on his heel and walked out.

As Fergus made his way upstairs, he noticed a fine layer of dust on the bannister. They had a house cleaner, Mrs. Pereira, he remembered—maybe she wasn’t doing such a good job. She was coming tomorrow, or maybe next week.  Or maybe not at all. In which case he would be happy, Mrs. Pereira disapproved of him, probably thought male teachers were sissies. She didn’t say so, but he could see it in her eyes.

He found more dust on the top of the fridge, and on the top of the picture frames. Even under the bed. An idea started to ferment in Fergus’ mind. Now that he was home all day, why waste money on a house cleaner? This was something he could do. He recalled the saying, ‘If you look hard enough, you will find it,’ or was it, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ It didn’t matter, because here it was, right before his eyes—the perfect retirement project.

Fergus didn’t really know how to clean house, that was true. But he could learn. He could phone someone he knew, his sister maybe, or his daughter. Or he could go out and ask one of his neighbors, but then he remembered how that turned out.

The obvious thing was to go online and Google it. When he typed in, “How to Clean House” he found “WikiHow To Do Anything.” It was read 981,982 times, so it must be good, he thought. When he got to the section on how to do the basic minimum, “Just pretend you cleaned, no one will know the difference,” he minimized it on the screen, and moved on to another site.

When Molly Maid popped up, with the slogan, “Everything you need to know, and more,” Fergus knew he had found the real thing, complete with a checklist and easy to follow illustrations.

He liked the way it started, “Before you start going room to room, pause first to put on some great, lively music.” Well, he could do that. Fergus had a wonderful collection of music. He took his time going through his CDs. This was important—it would set the pace for his new project. He could choose a different type of music for each day. Just think how much he could do to Samba music, or the Flight of the Bumblebee! He chose a slow waltz for today—no use getting tired right away, he could change the pace later.

The next item on the checklist was picking up clutter,

“Don’t just open the closet doors and throw items in.” the checklist said, “…scrutinize the items, is it time to donate or recycle?”

What? He didn’t have time for that. It was already 10:30. There was no clutter anyway. Clare always looked after that.

He moved on to dusting:

“When dusting,” the checklist instructed, “Go left to right, top to bottom with microfiber cloths.” He didn’t know microfiber cloths from cheese, but he found a stack of towels in the closet—they would do. He started with the slatted blinds: “Take wide, sweeping strokes with the dust cloth.” This would be very time-consuming, he could see. He would have to hurry—it was already eleven o’clock. He changed the music to something a little faster, salsa this time. Fergus liked this part. It reminded him of cleaning chalkboards, something he had done for years.

“Don’t forget to hit the tops of doors, fans, light fixtures, picture frames,” he read on, “And yes, each of your knickknacks (keep them in display cases to reduce dusting work). For the face of framed photos, TV screens, and computer monitors, use glass cleaner on your cotton cloth for a finishing shine.”

Fergus went back to the cleaning cupboard, and picked up a spray can. “Spray in an even stream, making sure to cover all areas,” he read. That sounded about right. He sprayed in wide, even strokes, in time with the music. He made sure he did all of the glass pictures on the walls, every one. Even the couple that fell as he was dusting. He sprayed them and polished them, and put them back.

Now he was ready for the next step:

“Sweep/mop/floors. For mopping, start at the farthest corner of the room and move back toward the entrance. Be sure to damp mop the backboards. For this, you may want to move the furniture to the middle of the room.”

This took a little time—the furniture was awkward for one person, and sometimes things fell, like the lamp on the end table. He replaced the broken light bulb, and balanced the lamp back on the table, pushing it into the center of the room with the rest of the furniture. Finally, he was able to get to all of the backboards.

Just then, he heard the back door slam.
Clare! Home already! He stood up and surveyed the room. It didn’t look good—he’d have to explain.
It wasn’t Clare. It was Mrs. Pereira. She stood at the doorway, frozen to the spot. Then she walked to the stereo and snapped off the music.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Are you doing my job?”
“What are you doing here?” Fergus croaked, “Today isn’t your day. Clare would have told me.”
“I’m doing an extra day. To spring clean,” she said, gazing about the room. She took in the furniture piled in the center of the room, the broken lamp, the cracked pictures. She walked closer to the pictures, squinting her eyes.

“What is wrong with the pictures?” she said, “Why is the glass all white?”

Fergus looked. The glass on every picture was a cloudy white. Mrs. Pereira strode across the room and picked up the spray can he was using.

“You used starch on the pictures?” she asked, “Why?”

Fergus gave up—the writing was on the wall. He sighed.

“My mistake,” he said, “Sorry. I’ll help you put the furniture back.”

He looked at the rest of his checklist, all the things he would never do:
-Clean inside of the microwave.
-Damp mop the kitchen floor.
-Make bed.
-Dust and vacuum the bedrooms
-Fold laundry and put in dresser.
-Put a mint on your pillow.

Too bad about the mints. He was really looking forward to that.

To be continued.