Everything is Terrible and We’re All Going to Die

I am currently in the process of Getting My Shit Together Like A Proper Adult.

Okay, I guess I’m in the process of being in the process of getting my shit together. It involves a whole lot of question answering and list making and goal setting ::VOMITING NOISE:: and I know I need to do it but I don’t wannaaaaa… Yes, I know that having a tantrum about it won’t help, but I’m going to have one anyway. Estate planning and wills and trusts are tedious and boring and expensive and they remind you just how much longer you’re going to have to keep yourself in the workforce in order to maybe, possibly retire. Someday. Maybe. If you’re lucky, and you do all of this planning ahead of time so that you have the funds to support it.

I have never been one to bank on what I like to call ‘imaginary money’. Bonuses from employers are imaginary money. An inheritance is imaginary money. Social Security is imaginary money. These kinds of things are the chickens you’re not supposed to count before they hatch--the eggs you’re not supposed to put all in one basket.

Has anyone ever noticed how many avian-themed idioms the English language employs? Good grief.

In an attempt to allocate some funds to a managed account in order to allow my nest egg (There it is again! More birds!) to grow into something that will help to provide for me in my dotage, I’ve been banging my noggin against a questionnaire from the company that holds the accounts my parents use for the same purpose. This thing is giving me a complex. I’m trying to answer the questions seriously but each one simply gets more farcical.

Q: At what age do you plan to retire?
A: Um, 67, I guess? That’s the standard right now, isn’t it? ::consults Google:: Yeah, okay, let’s go with that. But, I mean, that’s thirty-something years away and you have no idea what can happen in that amount of time. Maybe we’ll repeat 1929! Oh, crap. Maybe I should plan to retire at 120, just in case. That ought to cover me, right? Right?!

Q: Let’s think about your long-term family goals. Are you planning to get married or add to your family? Have you started a plan for your children’s education?
A: STOP TRYING TO FORCE ME INTO A 1950’s NUCLEAR FAMILY, FINANCE PEOPLE.

Q: O...kay. How about your current investments? Are they adequately saving toward your goals? Do they reflect your values?
A: Reflect my values? It’s cute that y’all are trying to make finance and philanthropy exist in the same realm. Let me tell you a little something, darlin’s--IT DON’T WORK THAT WAY.

Q: ::flips page on legal pad with a grimace:: How about your health? What are your thoughts regarding your possible future long-term care?
A: My thoughts on possible future long-term care are that I would like to be dead before I require it. (<--This is 100% true. I’ve experienced that whole getting old and dying thing enough times now with other people to know that it sucks for everyone involved, and I hope that I recognize when I am starting to deteriorate enough to have to consider anything other than an independent living arrangement in a senior community so that I can shuffle off my mortal coil on my own terms, thank you very much.)

Q: What about your home? Are you planning to stay where you are or move? What about a vacation home?
A: ...You don’t read the real estate listings, do you.

Q: And work? Any planned changes there? Are you making the most of your company-sponsored 401(k)?
A: It is literally part of my job to yell at people who don’t make the most of the company-sponsored 401(k). And I do a lot of yelling.

Q: If you had more time and money, where would you spend it? Travel? Restaurants? Taking up a new hobby in retirement like golf?
A: Could you be any more stereotypical right now? Anyway, in the current economic climate it’s likely that if I do get to retire at all, I’ll be alive for all of twelve minutes of it, and I’m sure as hell not going to devote those twelve minutes to golf.

Q: Monetary gifts? Maybe leaving a legacy of your values?
A: Oh, yeah, actually. The Elizabeth Fazzio Scholarship for Junior Cynics. $10k a year to some teenage asshole who’s just as jaded as I am so that they can go to college and really learn to hate the world and everything in it.

Q: ::pinches bridge of nose:: Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

So...yeah. I will attend to my estate, such as it is, because it’s The Thing I’m Supposed To Do, but I’m seriously wondering why I’m bothering.