“Have you got a pension?” isn’t the first question I ask a date but it’s high on my list if I’m considering an actual relationship.
Nicola Prentis, MSN Insider
From my first glance, I knew I’d found the woman I’d want to spend the rest of my life with. “Sweater girl” is what we called them, because so many of them were girls in sweaters. It just seemed . . . so right.
But she was special. Her sweater had those poofy sleeves that I found so alluring. I’m usually tongue-tied when I meet an attractive woman, but with her–Melanie–the words flowed out of me like wine from a decanter instead of like ketchup from a non-squeeze bottle, as was usually the case.
“That’s quite a fetching sweater you have on,” I said as I surreptitiously inhaled the fragrance of mothballs she emitted.
“Why, thank you!”
“Why not?”
“Oh, a funny guy, huh?” I liked how she gave as good as she got.
“The Salisbury steak brown and canned peas green combo is smashing. Looks like the color scheme of my grade school cafeteria on a Wednesday. Or my grandmother’s front parlor.”
“You sure know how to win a girl’s heart.”
“How’s that?”
“Compare her to an old woman.”
“She’s not old. She’s dead.”
“I’m . . . sorry to hear that. Say, listen . . .”
I was all ears. “Yes?”
“Have you got a light?” She drew a pack of mentholated Oasis cigarettes from her purse and popped one out into her lips in one swift, graceful motion.
“Sure do.” The whole business–as they say in the theatre–is so sensuous.
“You wouldn’t happen to have an employer-sponsored, defined-contribution, personal pension savings account–would you?”
I was taken aback, to say the least. If you wanted to say the most, you could say I was taken way back, way back, way way back–like Harry Caray, former St. Louis Cardinals-Chicago Cubs broadcaster.
“As defined in 26 U.S.C. Section 401(k)?”
“That’s my favorite neighborhood of the Internal Revenue Code!”
A lot of guys might have been put off by Melanie’s direct, almost blunt approach, but not me. “As a matter of fact–I do.”
It was as if she was a kitten and I’d scratched her under the chin. She began to purr audibly–I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d started rubbing against my legs. “Tell me more,” she said, then did that thing where a woman–in this case her–ruffles up a tie around the neck of a man–in this case, me.
“Well, it automatically calculates your investment mix based on your age, current income, and retirement goals.”
“Umm-hmm.”
“Then periodically re-balances when gains . . .”
” . . . or losses.”
“Right–cause your portfolio to get”–I hesitated just a moment as I cleared my throat– “unbalanced.”
“You mean . . . ‘out of whack.’”
“Yes, but I couldn’t say that in front of a lady.”
“This isn’t my first . . . periodic employee contribution.”
I could feel something rise in the depths of my being. It was either my libido, long-dormant due to the Federal Reserve’s overly-drawn-out low-interest rate policy, or my shares of Armor Investments Convertible Securities Fund II, into which I’d been pouring money for the past half-decade–and try saying that five times fast.
“You know a lot of women . . .”
“I’m not a lot of women–I’m me.”
“So I noticed. Anyway, the first question most women ask on a first date isn’t about pensions plans.”
“It wasn’t the first question I asked. It was the second.”
I gulped. “I thought the one about lighting your cigarette didn’t count.”
She made a little moue with her mouth–there was really no other part of her body that could have pulled off that trick. “It counted for me,” she said.
“Okay, so it wasn’t the first question. What’s the third?”
“It’s one that I can’t seem to find an answer to, no matter who I ask, no matter where I look.”
“So . . . what is it?”
“How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”