This Senior Discount Was No Bargain

It was a pleasant Friday evening--the 8th of January, if you must know--and maybe a little on the cool side. I left the house about 9:15 and drove the familiar streets to the theater, arriving as planned just a couple minutes before the start of the 9:30 showing of “A Civil Action.”

I parked the car, turned off the engine, got out and put the keys in my pocket. It’s a routine I’ve memorized over the years and come to handle quite well. I walked up to the ticket window where a young man, perhaps in his early 20s, awaited behind the glass. As I neared, I fished into my wallet for a twenty.

I had no reason to suspect a life-altering moment was at hand.

The young man took the twenty, punched out my ticket and said without hesitating, “Four dollars . . . and sixteen dollars change.”

Great, I thought. Wonder why the discount.

I can’t say that I charted the exact moment I realized what the little scamp had done. I just know that the movie was in progress, because the realization hit me like a thunderbolt and for several minutes afterward nothing on the screen made sense.

He charged me the senior-citizen rate. He thought I was 55 freakin’ years old.

I wouldn’t have minded if he’d been in the ballpark.

But six years off?

Too bad I don’t wear a watch, because I could have logged the exact minute at which my life ceased to have meaning. Or I could have stood up in the crowded theater and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s all over for me. Thank you very much for being a part of this historic evening.”

Like someone clutching at the proverbial straw, I reviewed the particulars: The young man didn’t have the best look at me. It was dark. Maybe the glass in the booth hadn’t been cleaned recently. It was the end of a long week for me. Perhaps I was unusually haggard from giving my all. He’d been reading when I approached, and I’m not at all sure he gave me his full attention.

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

It’s probably a sin to be vain or, at the very least, it’s a bad look. Surely life has more important components than worrying about one’s looks. But as Fernando used to say on Saturday Night Live, “It’s better to look good than to feel good.”

How is it you go through your adult life having people say you look five years younger than your age and suddenly you’re Walter Matthau?

Wasn’t that me, just a couple of years ago and full of oats, dancing around the softball field like Baryshnikov in rubber cleats? OK, that was five years ago, but it doesn’t seem that long.

I know. You don’t care.

That’s why it was good that my mother was visiting at the time. When her little poopsie is upset, she cares.

She’d gone to bed early that Friday night, but the next morning I told her the whole story.

“Don’t ever again tell me I look good,” I told her, in the most blatant fishing-for-a-compliment statement ever uttered.

I must say, she came up a bit short. “It was probably the sweater you were wearing,” she said.

Oh, thank you, Mom. Not only am I prematurely aging, I’m also wearing outdated clothing.

As my funk deepened (and perhaps because she now realized she had a son mistaken for a senior citizen), she grew more reassuring.

Looks don’t matter, she said. Everyone ages. With age comes serenity and wisdom.

I tuned her out. Maybe it was still too fresh in my memory . . . “Four dollars and sixteen dollars change.”

Jan. 8, 1999. The day my youth faded from view forever and the future presented itself as a long line of men’s beauty products.

Look on the bright side, mom said.

Such as?

“You still look good to me,” she said.

“And you saved $3.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821, by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.