I should have known. A few days before my retirement, I went to work without combing my hair. I had washed it, but when I glanced in the bathroom mirror at work, I looked like Kramer. Then on a drive to Worcester two days later, we found ourselves five miles south of Manchester on Interstate 93 before I realized I had taken the wrong route.

Now, like anyone else, I have my airhead moments, but I always comb my hair in the morning, and I know the way to Worcester.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on. I was about to retire and enter an unknown world without the safety net of a job, a good salary and a title. But was this just a case of nerves? Or were these omens?

In my experience here is what happens when you retire:

You set out to solve a few problems around the house. The dishwasher has been broken for a while. It turns out that, in fact, you need a new one. Likewise, fixing the squirrel damage under the back eave will cost you hundreds more than you thought.

As you contemplate the price of a new garbage disposal, the refrigerator and freezer stop cooling. It takes days to get them repaired, and you lose a lot of food and live out of a cooler for a week.

One morning, there's no hot water. The repairman fixes it but also notices that the water tank is leaking. Estimate for replacement: $2,000-plus.

This agenda, plus the bills, plus property taxes, far exceeds our new monthly budget, but there's more. Much more.

The price of oil goes crazy, giving us second thoughts about summer travel and a visceral fear about heating the house next winter. The dollar sinks even farther against the euro. My wife's parents in Belgium aren't getting any younger, and we owe them a visit. And the stock market crashes.

I took all these things personally. They surprised me. I knew we would pay a price for neglecting the house, just not so high a price. As for the economy, it always has its ups and downs, but its current collapse is shocking. Somewhat (but not entirely) irrationally, I blame President Bush - and my own naïveté. Despite his abysmal failure in so many realms, I didn't think a staunch Republican could screw the economy up so royally.

I suggested to a friend that at least you'd think the oilmen in the White House could control oil prices. He replied, "They have." To him, the run-up at the pumps - and in oil company profits - is the administration's parting gift to its favorite constituency.

My friend is more realistic, or perhaps cynical, than I. For peace of mind, I'm trying to be philosophical about these hard times.

One of the half dozen appliance repairmen (and they are all men) I have met in recent weeks put me on the right track here. When bad breaks pile up, he tells himself, "I could have been born in Afghanistan."

Age can lend perspective to your thinking, too. I was born after the Great Depression, but I can tell you that this isn't it. At least not yet. I do remember the Eisenhower recession, guns and butter, the Arab oil embargo, stagflation, rampant interest rates, the Reagan recession, the demise of banks and savings and loans, and the Bush I recession.

During those crises, it always seemed that something essential had been lost and that good times might never return. In other words, it felt the way it feels now.

Single page