I'd post this in "Overheard at Work" but... I'm not working. Really.
My spouse was outside this morning picking up around the yard. Our next-door neighbor was washing her car and they started chatting.
Eventually our neighbor asked:
"So what kind of work is your husband doing now?"
Spouse: "Work? He's been retired for 12 years."
Neighbor: "Oh. But I've heard his car pulling out of the garage almost every morning this week at 5:30 AM..."
Spouse: "That's not work, he's been going to dawn patrol!"
Neighbor: "Dawn patrol? What kind of job is that?"
Spouse: "No, it's not a job, he's going surfing!"
There's been a nice south shore swell rolling through this week. It took my spouse a few more paragraphs to explain that I like to paddle out right around sunrise because the waves are clean and the winds are calm. Our neighbor hears me leave, but then she leaves for work before I get back from surfing. I guess that's how she assumed I was commuting.
A few paragraphs later she mentioned that they had to call in a plumber and a contractor this week. Three years ago they had two new toilets installed (by a different plumber), and the work apparently wasn't done very well. For three years one toilet has been leaking around the wax seal and under the sheet vinyl flooring (on the concrete foundation). The other toilet has been leaking from the wall shutoff valve-- a small stem leak of maybe one-two drops per minute. For three years. They only looked into it because the sheet vinyl flooring was peeling up in both bathrooms and the baseboard molding was starting to get... moldy.
So for the last week a plumber and a contractor have been essentially living at their house-- removing a toilet, removing the flooring and baseboard molding, drying out the room, putting down new sheet vinyl & baseboard molding, and reinstalling the toilet. Once one bathroom was back in business they shifted to the other bathroom and repeated the process. The plumber used thicker wax seals and groomed both isolation valves.
At the end of the conversation she said that their air conditioner had died last winter and they'd replaced it with a new unit. It was relatively cool so they weren't running their A/C and it took them a while to have the new unit installed. About a month into this, our local electric company actually sent an inspector out to their house because their electric bill dropped $200 that month-- HECO suspected them of stealing electricity. We've lived next door for 14 years and have never used more than ceiling fans (and the tradewinds) to cool our house, but I guess they like their interior a little cooler. Their "normal" electric bill is over $300/month.
I think they're going to be working for a very long time.