Someone is stealing my time.

I had a whole stockpile of time and I’m starting to notice somebody is sneaking around and taking little chunks of my time. So far I haven’t actually seen the time stealer, but I can certainly tell that something strange is going on.

My children are not children; in fact, there are other children hanging around my children who actually look like my children. Oh sure, I have aged, that’s just the way life is. I was complaining to my wife about becoming older just the other day and she had not heard of the Time Thief. Come to think about it, it wasn’t the other day it was several weeks ago. No that’s wrong; it might have been a little longer than that — let me think. OK, I stopped and thought about it.

It was when the kids were young and now they’re in their 30s or maybe 40s, wait, our oldest is 53? I’ve got to stop thinking about these things because every time I actually stop and seriously think, I get older than I thought I was. This stealing time has got to stop, but who do I call to catch the time thief, the Oxford police? Probably not, they already have their hands full. Do I call the Ole Miss police? Oh sure, they probably have nothing to do except keep a suspicious eye on thousands of motivated young college kids who have all the time in the world in front of them and no fear of wasting time. It just isn’t fair.

So what do I do to get help keeping the time thief from taking too much of my time — call Ghostbusters? No that would be “Time Busters.” I do remember back in my more active years, hoping that time would fly so I could get to what I had planned for next week or month, how dumb was that? That’s just throwing days away, that you’ll never get back, just to get to the more fun days. Maybe those wasted days are banked somewhere and at some point in life you can take them out of the time bank and add days to your life. Oh sure, dream on dummy, and probably the term “wasted” has a double meaning. Now that I think about it, it’s something like having retirement savings in the bank and not always realizing that your retirement funds are in mutual funds and one day you find yourself going to the financial planner’s office asking how Medicaid works.

I’m going to promise myself not to waste any days I have left and now I’m wondering how many that may be. My mother is 99 and her sister, my aunt, is 100, so I’m guessing I may have some good longevity genes. I think that’s good; however, looking at the stock market I may have more days left than living money. My wife says we’re OK and I have to believe her because she handles our budget. After I retired I told her I wanted her to be ready to handle household expenses in case she had to do it by herself. She thought that was a reasonable suggestion and so far she has done a great job. I say that because our credit rating is still very good, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t shuffled some funds into a private account that I know nothing about, for her future trip, alone, to a fancy, upscale, island resort in Bora Bora. I’m joking because she’s already told me about the account just to rub it in.

So, I’m in the market to buy time. My doctor has told me that I should be thinking about good health and longevity, but that’s my point, I’ve been thinking about it and I’m really upset with the Time Thief that has stolen way too much of my time. It may take some Merlot, but if it’s my wife, perhaps a second bottle. I’ve got the time.

Jim McCauley is a retired Oxford resident and can be reached at jimcc@att.net.