This short skit is not so much about nostalgia as it is about appreciating what we have when we have it, and not just years afterwards. It also suggests how conflict can add spice to life, as long as we don’t view it as an ordeal merely to endure. Often it is only later that we see the adventure in it.
Recently retired and former coworkers Vern and Ollie find themselves sitting on a park bench, reminiscing over the “good ol’ days” and pondering what to do with all the free time on their hands.
Vern: |
Well, here we are at retirement. |
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Ollie: |
Yeah, we’ve finally arrived. It seemed like we’d never make it. |
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Vern: |
Well, we went through 30-some years of hell to get here. |
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Ollie: |
All that company politics, all the backstabbing, scheming, manipulating, scapegoating, passing the buck, forming cliques, haggling, backstabbing, . . . |
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Vern: |
And don’t forget “leveraging.” |
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Ollie: |
Oh, you mean the blackmail, bribery, and extortion? |
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Vern: |
Now, it sounds like a bad thing when you say it like that. |
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Ollie: |
If it quacks like a duck and it waddles like a duck, then . . . |
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Vern: |
Well, all that’s behind us now. We can do whatever we want, and no one’s here telling us we can’t. Not a care in the world. We can get up whenever we want or stay in bed all day. We can go pretty much wherever we want, or just stay put, and there’s not a dang thing anyone can do about it. |
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Ollie: |
You’ve got that right! |
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Vern: |
Damn straight! |
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Ollie: |
Well, Vern, what do you want to do today? |
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Vern: |
I don’t know, what you want to do? |
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Ollie: |
Well, something with a bit of adventure. |
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Vern: |
You mean like that trip you took seeing all those sights in Europe with that alumni group of yours? |
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Ollie: |
No, not like that. It was interesting and all that, but I kinda got bored after a few days. All those churches and museums started looking the same. Nothing really grabbed me. Know what I mean? |
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Vern: |
Oh, you mean like the time you convinced Richard that he’d made the mistake in accounting, when you’d actually given him the wrong numbers? Did he ever catch on? |
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Ollie: |
I certainly didn’t tell him. Oh, do you remember when Margaret complained about the dirty dishes always being left in the lunchroom sink? She swore she’d never wash another one. |
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Vern: |
And you kept putting more of them in there when she wasn’t looking. |
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Ollie: |
Well, she eventually ended up washing them all. |
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Vern: |
Not only that, but’d she cleaned the refrigerator and the microwave, too – muttering under her breath all the while. |
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Ollie: |
I think that’s the only time I ever heard her cuss. |
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Vern: |
Her face turned as red as a beet. |
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Ollie: |
Yeah, those were the days. |
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Vern: |
Well, I sure do miss ‘em. |