A Modest Proposal - The Retirement Registry

I'll be married for 42 years in two weeks.  This was the pre-Internet age, hence there was no concept of a computer based Wedding Registry.  The Wedding Registry is a great idea, find an item, click on it, plasticize it (put it on a credit card) and you're done.  No need to worry if the avocado colored set of cookingware from cashing in your Plaid Stamp books is the same shade as the fondue pot someone else is purchasing.

Recent estimates are 10,000 people a day in the US are retiring.  The image of a retirement gift is some type of clock; this is meaningless in our digital age.  While recently seeing the requested Wedding Registry items for some forthcoming weddings we'll be attending, a light bulb went on in my head and I came up with an obvious idea: the Retirement Registry.

As one approaches retirement, they should inform everyone, former workers, second and third cousins one or more times removed, neighbors, everyone who has ever sent you a wedding invitation, etc. of the upcoming retirement.  Set up a web site, and most important set up the Retirement Registry.

Use the typical model of a registry with places like Williams-Sonoma or Crate and Barrel.  Given the fact by the time you retire your china is rarely used and your kids really don't want it (they're just being polite when they say they like it), your cups, saucers and glasses no longer match, and you really never used the $300 knife set, the registry should be at different types of places:

Medical Supply Store - This is a no brainer, given walkers, canes, wheelchairs, etc. that are needed according to the retiree stereotype.
Cruise Lines - Obvious.  Long prolonged vacations.  Retirees are supposed to travel all the time.  (Disney Cruise Line is not acceptable.)
Early Bird Restaurants - Helps out the economy by filling the gap between the lunch and post work drinking crowd.
Home Improvement Contractors - Ramps, elevator lifts and other items hawked on obscure cable TV stations at off hours.
Electronic Appliance Stores - Digital devices, like cell phones, with large buttons and extra remotes (old folks supposedly lose items).
Eyeglasses Store - It's getting increasing hard to find horned rimmed glasses, but given our consumerism and the impact of Mad Men, this will soon be an easy to find, high fashion item, albeit at an obscene price.

The R.02 (using current parlance to represent the Retirement Registry, with R.01 the Wedding Registry) could be a money making idea.  Now we need to obtain investment capital from a hedge fund.  

A related idea, one of you could follow up on, is the College Registry.  As my kids are done with college, I leave this to a reader 'as an exercise'.