By Jim Hagarty
2004
The public health and medical communities are on a never-ending quest for a formula to slow down the aging process in humans.
I have discovered one such prescription and offer it here for no fee.
A person intent on hanging onto his youth for as long as he possibly can needs to stay out of fast-food restaurants and chain-owned coffee shops. Not because of any detrimental effects of ingesting the meals, snacks and beverages offered up with such speed in these places, though it’s doubtful Ponce de Leon would have mistaken any of them for the Fountain of Youth, but because of the policies they have established which offer cut-rate prices to their aged customers, euphemistically known nowadays as “seniors”. This would not be of much concern if there existed somewhere a fixed and unchangeable definition of what constitutes a senior, but because the concept is totally open to interpretation, grievous errors are occasionally made by well-meaning wait staff.
To illustrate, the words slipped far too easily out of the young woman’s mouth as she served me the coffee and muffin I’d just ordered in one of these establishments recently.
“Would you like the senior’s discount today?” she asked. Now, at the risk of offending the person whose advanced years really do qualify him or her for the status of “senior”, I have to report that I objected to this offer in an exceedingly growly manner. “I would like it if I was a senior,” I gruffed. Then I set down full price for my coffee and muffin and was proud to do so. I huffed out of the place with more bluster than any true senior citizen could ever muster up.
Later, I wished I had been quicker on my feet and produced the photos I carry of my children who are only six and eight years old. But I soon remembered that a person could be a senior and still have young children, as a certain former Canadian prime minister could attest.
However, my case is different. Yes, there is a fair expanse of unoccupied real estate on the top of my cranium these days, a space once forested so thickly I could hardly drag a comb through it. And yes, the dwindling strands on my head maybe give me the appearance of being older than the 48 years I was when that young woman offered me my first senior’s discount.
As it turns out, she was not the first to mistake me for a senior and over the past few years it is happening with increasing frequency. I just go with it now. And I’ve learned to use it to my advantage. One particular restaurant has a mix of young and not-so-young counter staff and I have found that if I arrange things so that a young person serves me, I am guaranteed to be offered a discount, as I must look like the oldest person they’ve ever seen. If I get shuffled off to an older counter person, it is unlikely I will get any offer.
But back to my staying-young formula. It is simple: Hang around with actual seniors. Some say the key is to be in the company of enthusiastic young folk and that is an appealing prescription. But in their company, it is too easy to feel like the Ancient Mariner.
Now there was a guy who deserved a discount.
