There it is right on the front page of the Los Angeles Times: “Many Americans will have to work until they’re 80.”

Say what? You mean I can retire at 80? Hooray. OMG. Boy, what a great piece of Christmas news.

Deck the halls. I can’t wait until she comes home from school to tell her. Will she be excited. Here we thought we were going to have to work until we were 90. We had it all planned out. We were both going to sock our pennies away, then we were going to take our savings and buy a used doublewide in Boca Raton.

We’re waiting until I have enough wine bottles to take back to the store, which will net a few grand.

Next year when it’s warmer, we’re going to sell subscriptions to The Nation and The New York Times door-to-door, but only in the upscale progressive neighborhoods.

We’ve cut out meat and dairy entirely, not just to save money for retirement, but also for health reasons, because we both thought we were going to have to work until we were 90, and we wanted to be healthy enough to do the limbo at the early bird at the Sunshine Home.

But now it’s all changed. I can’t wait to tell her. Maybe I should just call her at school. No. I want to see her face. This is better than winning the lottery, I’ll tell you. 80. Can you imagine?

The survey in the Times goes on to say that “Americans are dangerously unprepared for retirement.”

OMG. They’ve been taping us.

It adds that the desired goal for retirement would be $350,000. We can do that if we sell the house, the dog, all the furniture, our children’s furniture, space heaters, the car, our children’s cars, and cancel our subscription to “Fiber in Your Life Weekly.”

We sold our house in California for that price, and when we moved here, we bought a new car and two expensive dogs. We had to send pictures back to Hollywood friends.

We’re living a Hollywood television sitcom: “Teacher and good-for-nothing ex-television writer move to Maine.” So we had to create an image. How would it have looked on a reality show, seeing the two of us peering out of a trailer window with a cheap cat next to us? Then, she who is wise in these things tells me that all those old friends who would be impressed by upscale finery are all dead.

I’m still trying to sell the sitcom idea of two crazy, lovable, beautiful, fashionable, whacky people who throw out fame and big money to find peace and solitude in the woods of Maine. The premise: “She can teach and he can write and be a house husband and raise the kids and the dogs. They will live in a big house where planes from the nearby airport fly right over it every day.” Oh you literati. Yes, that is the plot of John Irving’s best selling novel, “The World According to Garp.” That’s how she, a voracious reader, got the idea. Conned by a book.

So here I am, drinking two -for-ten-buck wine and living with the last of the dogs, a psychotic Old

English sheepdog with separation anxiety issues. He leaps and snarls and barks at her like she’s a burglar when she tries to leave the house. If he dies, I’d have to perform those acts. Not with my knees, I tell you. I’m sure she’s really tired of going out through the basement window — the only way out because the dog is terrified of stairs and won’t go down there.

The Times article finishes by saying: “Three in 10 people in their 60s have less than $25,000, suggesting they’ll have no choice but to live on Social Security.” OMG. I better go scouring the neighbor’s trash for more bottles.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.