It’s up on the roof

Last week I made a reference to a friend that my chances of retiring were “up on the roof” which caused a quizzical and confused look from my friend. My friends are aware of my repertoire of bad humorous stories, but they didn’t know what I meant.

What do I mean by “up on the roof” ? Well it is the punch line from one of my more favorite stories which goes something like:

Bob was on vacation and he called his brother Phil, who was supposed to be watching Bob’s house

And taking care of his cat. Bob asked how things were, and Phil told him the house was fine. Bob then asked how his cat was, to which Phil replied, “Your cat is dead”.

Bob was flabbergasted. He railed at his brother, “How can you be so nonchalant about something so terrible. You can’t just blurt out the cat is dead! That is just so cold!”.

Phil was confused and asked, “Well, how was I supposed to tell you?”

Bob said, “Well, you could ease into it, like on this call you could say, well the cat is missing and we can’t find it. Then the next time I called you could say you found the cat but he is up on the roof, and then when I finally called, you could say, the cat fell off the roof, but by then I’d be ready for bad news.”

Phil agreed that was a good idea, and he’d remember that. Bob then asked, “How is Mom?”

“Mom’s up on the roof.”, replied Phil..

So if you see me reference something as being financially “up on the roof”, that is what I am referring to.

Hopefully, I won’t feel like I am “up on the roof” any time soon.