Retirement Blues

He’d almost cut his finger to the bone. There was blood everywhere. Marge came running out to the garage when she heard him yelling and cursing. After four years in the Navy and twenty years as a cop he knew them all, and had been called most of them. Here he was on the second day of retirement and he’d hurt himself worse than all those low-lifes could in twenty years on the job.
Retirement would be great he’d told himself, his wife wasn’t so sure.” What will you do? I won’t be here most of the time, I’ll be at the hospital working.” He told her not to worry. He would finally have time for all his hobbies and be able to fix up the house the way they wanted. When she asked what hobbies, he was only able to come up with drink beer and watch football on TV. So he’d decided to take up woodworking, it looked simple enough on those TV shows. Hence the bleeding thumb and the wave of nausea that accompanied it.
Marge wasted no time, she wrapped his hand in a towel and drove to the hospital like Richard Petty. After sixteen stiches and a lecture from the doctor on the safe use of tools they returned home. Before the painkiller had worn off Marge had cleaned and packed his woodworking tool kit to return to the hobby shop the next day. She didn’t need another round of her clumsy husband doing something stupid and ending up in the hospital. She encouraged him to take up something safe, like taking long walks.
One week later he was back in the emergency room, this time with torn ligaments in his knee. Walking wasn’t such a great idea after all. She begged and pleaded with him to go back to work with the killers, junkies, and other assorted criminals, it was safer.