I’m normally a real positive guy, but I have to say, this hasn’t been the best week of my life. It’s been a painful one. I wiped out my knee doing some exercises that a physical therapist is making me do. Unfortunately, I wasn’t doing them right. I knew a better way, of course. So I’m paying for that.
Western View
To add insult to injury, my bifocals aren’t working right; something happened to the glass in the lens and I can’t read things like I could before. And, darn it, it’s getting hard to drive at night on the two lane roads – everyone is coming at me with their high beams on.
But the real kicker came in the mail yesterday. I got word that I am officially old. I got my Medicare card.
Now, Medicare is a fine program for seniors. Apparently, you have to join Medicare when you turn 65 years old, and that happens to me next month. It’s the last hill I have left to climb.
That first hill was when I turned 50. That’s the year you can join AARP. But of course you’re not really old then – they put all these young looking actors and actresses on the cover of their magazine and tell you that these youngsters are old enough for AARP. And that’s the year you start getting discounts on stuff because now, you’re a senior.
Of course, the discounts improve when you turn 55, and you get even more at 60, then 62. But the real increase comes at 65. Then, things are as cheap as things are going to get – no further markdowns, because you are really old and the good times are all done. And there’s no fine print; the young’uns know we can’t read it.
But be careful when you go into restaurants. The other day I was staring at my bill, trying to decipher that tiny pale blue printout that tells you what you owe, and I asked if they had a senior’s discount. The cute young lady said, yes, and they’d already applied it to my bill.
What can you say to that…
I’m grandpa Len Wilcox, and that’s the Western View from AgNet West.