All this talk of undeserved bailouts and ill-gotten bonuses has me scratching my head. What, exactly, is a retention bonus? And then mine came.

Yesterday I walked out my front door under the lazy beat of the afternoon heat to wheel my four garbage cans out onto the curb. Yes, four. One for trash trash, the dirty stuff. One for recyclables, although I hear that in these dire times they aren’t recycling them anymore. And two for the green waste, the clippings, leaves and branches that we harvest from my yard by the ton. As I yanked the dusty bins from the driveway to the street for the umpteenth time I realized I was wearing the same Old Navy denim capri pants I always wear, my only denim capri pants, although they ride too high and are cut too short and in truth are half a size too big, the pants I bought so long ago I can’t count the years, the ones I rarely wash or tend, that have ferried me through the thick of post-pregnancy and post-menopause and completely across the broad span of my middle years, pants no one else would want or wear, but I senselessly, foolishly, stubbornly – as is the nature of retention – retain them still.

The bonus? They still fit!

That was my retention bonus. I’m not giving it back.

A companion post to the Zen stimulus plan.