Misery Has Company in Too-Young Seniors Club
Without knowing it, I joined a club. In Wednesday’s column, I dwelt on my recent trauma of receiving the seniors discount at a local theater--a full six years ahead of my due date.
My wailing apparently reverberated with readers who remembered their own moment when the shroud began to descend. Actually, they phrased it much better than that, welcoming me to “the club” with their own stories:
From Ken Roth of Tustin: “Had the same experience a few years ago at a Long Beach carwash. Almost told them to forget the wash and just drive over me with the car.”
From Mel Lopez: “Mine came as a real kick in my stomach at the DMV while renewing my driver’s license. In the blank asking for color of hair, I wrote ‘Brown.’ When I handed it to the clerk, she looked up at me, scratched the word ‘Brown’ and wrote ‘Gray.’ I was not of senior status then, and to this day I remember the sting.”
From Beverly Schmidt, “a reader in her dynamic years. . . . If you think being tagged as a senior citizen is a shock, just wait until the day you open that little envelope and out drops your Medicare card! It took me two weeks to get over that traumatic experience.”
From Rex Myles of Huntington Beach: “Being a senior isn’t all that bad. Just try the Sizzler steak sandwich. It’s great, and with a 20% discount for seniors, it’s terrific.”
Brad Smith of Tustin: “I went to get my hair cut at your basic ‘we-can-do-one-haircut’ store. The gum-smacking, nose-pierced, butt-tattooed pubescent counter girl asked if I ‘still qualified for the senior citizen discount.’ I’m not sure how one gets unqualified, but being only 45, I wanted to know. I guess the look on my face told her she had possibly been mistaken, so she tried to correct the knife wound with a hatchet by adding, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell.’ In some final attempt to use my self-worth to wrap her gum in, she concluded with “Well, is $9 too much?’ I lifted my feeble chins and replied, ‘I think I can manage to eke it out of my pension check when it comes next week.’ ”
From JE Madden: “A couple years ago the almost identical situation happened to me, and even though I was only one year away from 55, it devastated me. . . . As I obsessed about it to my husband while we were waiting for the movie to start, he said, ‘Let it go, sweetheart, you look great.’ Bless his heart. I have a wonderful husband.”
From Michael Morgan of Newport Beach: “I think there comes a special day in every man’s life when his fleeting youth vanishes completely, without even having the courtesy to first say, ‘Sorry, bub, I’m out of here.’
“My day came in 1990 when ordering a meal in a restaurant. The teenage waitress asked me if I got a special price. When I said I didn’t understand, she asked how old I was. When I said 42, she blushed and turned away, saying, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ Things started going downhill from there. . . . I tried dyeing my hair and was actually charged full price for a meal--once. After that they seemed to catch on and continued giving me the senior discount anyway.”
From Sharon Biggers in Huntington Beach: “I’d like to suggest you were given the matinee price, but at 9:30 at night, that doesn’t seem too likely. . . . A couple of years ago, I stopped at Kenny Rogers Chicken on my way home from work for takeout. The gal at the register looked at me and clearly was unsure about whether or not to give me the discount. Was it worth it to risk my taking umbrage at the very suggestion that I qualified? She finally said, ‘You’re not 55, are you?’ ”
And, finally, from Rod McCarrell: “Having read your column and finding out you were upset because you are over 21 and you were not carded, I also noticed that you didn’t go back and pay the difference.”
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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com