Remember when you were in high school and being a SENIOR was nearly god-like status? Seniors were the coolest, most privileged, and most admired students on campus. If you were an underclass person, your “cool quotient” went up significantly if you hung out or dated someone in the senior class. Being a senior had so many perks. Senior trips, senior rings, senior prom, and, of course, graduation and all the parties and hoopla that went with it. Yes, being a senior was a big deal.
Then you go to college and start the process all over again on a grander scale. You graduate and become an official grown up. You embark on your career and if you remain on a success path, you may become a senior partner, senior officer, senior account executive, or, even, a senior vice-president along the way. The magic of becoming a senior anything is very prestigious.
And then you turn 50. Just as you start getting used to the idea, strange letters start arriving a few months before your birthday. The first thing that comes in the mail is your letter from AARP... The American Association of Retired Persons. It kind of stuns you because most people approaching the big 5-0 have completely bought into 50 being the new 40. Then we get this invitation to join a group that offers “tools and services to help people 50 and over get the most out of life”. I was doing fine until I got their damn letter. Even though the couple they pictured on their brochure looked like Mark Harmon and Jamie Lee Curtis, I wasn’t fooled. They were talking about old people.
Then the Social Security Administration sends you a recap of your 3+ decades of work history and your benefits if you should decide to retire at 62 or 66. There’s that “retirement” word again! Why are they sending me this stuff when I am only 50, still working and feeling the same as I did when I was 35?
It wasn’t until I got my first issue of the AARP magazine that I truly understood what was going on. As I turned the pages, I kept seeing the same word over and over again. SENIOR. There were articles about senior housing, senior health, budgeting for seniors, senior travel and, even, senior sex. Oh my!
What happened to the magic and charisma that went with being a senior before your 50th birthday? Gone! Vanished! POOF! You turn 50 and the word “senior” turns ugly.
You can ignore all of this for a few years, but then 55 happens. Then the moment arrives when you are faced with the lure of the “Senior Discount”. You’re ordering a Breakfast Slam at Denny’s and notice that you get a pretty big savings if you are a senior 55+. At first, I pretended that this discount didn’t really matter. It certainly didn’t mean enough to me to order a Senior Slam out loud. But then you start noticing it all over the place. Rental cars, hotels, and movie theaters all offer discounts to seniors. When you are 55, you blow off a lot of the offers because it’s for 60 year olds and up. You make a point to announcing to the waitress or whoever that you don’t qualify for the special senior price. It feels so good. The airlines require you to be 65, so I have loads of time before I can use that.
The first time you admit to being a senior to get the discount is a life changing experience. I was at Dairy Queen with a group of friends and their kids. We all wanted big extravagant sundaes. I bit the bullet, ordered six ice cream confections and they let me use my 55+ discount for the whole order. Not only were my friends impressed, the guy behind the counter made me show him my driver’s license because he couldn’t believe I was that old. For me, the whole experience was like the first time I had sex, only better. A cute young man didn’t think I looked like a geezer and I had a big yummy Pecan Mudslide. Being a senior became almost blissful again. I think I just invented Senior-licious. You people over 50 people can thank me.
