“Oooh I’m close, so close,” Martin said as he opened his latest 401(k) statement. But he hadn’t been an employee long enough at CognWheel to get the company to fully match him dollar for dollar on the paycheck. As of now it was merely fifty cents to every dollar he put in. But if he just put in one more full year of his exceedingly short life, he would get them to match seventy-five cents to his dollar. That was the same statistic they gave for what women made in comparison to women, thought Martin. They sure have been saying that for a while though.
“Just think Marcy, we’ll be living on Easy Street by the time I’m ready to retire.” Marcy, an undercover Daria watcher in high school, tried to resist quoting, “Isn’t that near Delusion Drive?” She married Martin during that brief period when he was still a dreamer, dabbling in abstract pastels that were generally blue and black colorscapes. It was funny to her now that she should be upset he gave up on his talent, though he didn’t really have any. One supposes that’s how he ended up as an office worker. She, on the other hand, was relegated to creating fonts all day in their increasingly prison-like apartment.
Every day at the end of the month, whenever the mail came, she thought about hiding the 401(k) update, which came without fail on the 28th to inform him of how much he had squirreled away from his paycheck. His excitement over it was beyond vexing to her–he never even showed that level of lust when she bothered to put on her silk chemise. It had to stop, she finally decided about a year later. So, one day, while he was at work, she picked up the letter, called Merrill Lynch and said she wanted to cash out the 401(k).
The next month, when Martin came home from work on the 28th, he eagerly perused through the mail on the counter. “Where is it?” he demanded. Marcy shrugged.
“Today was the day I was going to get seventy-five cents to my dollar–where the hell is that letter?” he practically screamed.
Marcy looked up from her page of font concoction. “I couldn’t tell you.”
The following morning, when Martin went to work and would presumably ask someone “in authority” what had happened, Marcy booked a flight to the Maldives where she started Martin’s retirement early. Maybe there was something to his 401(k) hard-on, she finally realized.