I awoke this morning in a lovely home in Rancho Mirage, with breathtaking views of snow-capped peaks in the distance, framed by waving palm trees and cacti.  As it was still a bit early in the morning for left-coasters, I decided to brew a cup of joe so I could sit outside in the early morning dew just like they do on TV commercials for girlie coffees.

But this wasn’t an ordinary house.  I was here as a guest of my former CEO of a telecom, who was here as a guest of a former CEO of a defense contractor, who was staying at one of his other homes on some other coast somewhere.  So needless to say, there was no Mr. Coffee in the kitchen.  There was a magnificent, sophisticated, complex machine designed to brew the most wonderful, perfect, aromatic coffee ever.  I was screwed.

While I’m hardly technophobic, I admit to being somewhat less engaged by gizmos than others in the blawgosphere.  But I can press a button with the best of them.  Unfortunately, this skill does me little good when there are many buttons available for pressing.  This coffee maker could have made NASA proud.  But I was stymied.  Worse still, if I pressed the wrong button and it exploded, I would have waken everyone else up.  They would have not only witnessed my error, but been predisposed to being miffed with me.  A bad combination.

The house in the stretch of desert between the snow-capped peaks had many such gizmos.  It had a refrigerator that could inform one of the instant that peak crispness in celery was about to elapse.  There were buttons and lights and grids along the wall where a light switch should have been.  It was very impressive.  I prefer to sit in the dark anyway.

From this, I realized that the best job in the world is to be a former CEO.  Not just a CEO of anything, but of a big corporation.  After all, you can’t give yourself a golden umbrella.  And that’s what makes this the best job ever.  You get paid entirely up front (much like criminal defense lawyer, but with many more zeros).  And then, you discuss all the people you know and the companies they used to run.  You have to go through the “run the company” stage in order to get to the really good stage, the former stage.  It’s paying one’s dues. 

Once you achieve success as a former CEO, you get to play for keeps on the gizmo scale.  Your days are filled with accumulating gizmos and learning how to use them.  Some take a few days to learn while others take months, even years.  There are gizmos here that no one knows how to use, but look spectacular.  I don’t know what they do, but I want them. 

I cannot get them, of course, as I am not a former CEO.  I have no paid my dues.  I have never run a company, and wouldn’t even begin to know how to properly fulfill the position of former CEO.  Seriously, I wouldn’t even know where to go to buy some of the things they take for granted.  They don’t sell them in the stores I frequent.  They are never on sale either, but even if they were, they wouldn’t buy them.  A former CEO knows that if you can go to two stores, one where a gizmo is available for less and one for more, it’s crucial to go to the one where it’s sold at a higher price.  If you have to ask why, you are not a likely candidate for former CEO.

I’m very happy to be friends with some former CEOs, and bask in the reflected glory of their gizmos.  Did I mention the $6000 shower curtain?  It is so worth it.