Time To Retire From This Call

My mother had me at thirty-five years old. Even though she’s retiring in a few months, she’s still working her long-term job at sixty-seven years old, but is taking full advantage of her right to do it remotely. She’s one of the lucky ones, as people past their mid-fifties are notoriously under-employed.

I, meanwhile, am at an age where most people have started their own household, but doing so has ended up not being in my stars. It’s a workday and new neighbors doing construction work have driven my mother to a small room and headphones blasting relaxing music.

The phone rings and I pick it up.

Representative: “Hi, I’m from [Place that makes sure people know they can get their homes insulated for cheap due to a government program].”

That program has been one of our recurring cold-callers who come back despite various “not interested” answers, but my mother has very recently been considering getting some work done that would technically count as heat insulation, and my own work is slow so I’m more in the mood to speak with one of their representatives than usual. The discussion quickly reaches the point where I have informed the representative that she’s not actually speaking to the house’s owner and mentioned my mother’s age.

Representative: “And where’s your mother right now?”

Me: “In the house, but she’s busy with her job.”

Representative: *In disbelief* “Is your mother really busy with her job at age sixty-seven?”

In the time it took for me to process that answer, my brain also pointed out that the questions had gotten a little too personal and that hanging up was probably the best course of action. With our government both considering adding financial penalties to early retirement and expecting my generation to retire a few years later than our parents did, a sixty-seven-year-old having a job shouldn’t be treated as something difficult to believe.