Clare is my hero of the month. Since she took on Daisy, a 13-month Wheaton Terrier, some friends have expressed concern that the dog is too much for her. She says she nearly lost it with one friend and told her “I’m not a weak, feeble, old woman. I’m 65, strong, healthy, of sound mind and the twice daily walks are doing me the world of good.” She says she and Daisy are taking training classes, something the had not had with her previous owners, and “in time she will be a wonderful dog.” Why, she wonders, do people think they know better than oneself? My advice is to ignore that advice.
Go, girl.
One of America’s leading Systems of Fear revolves around aging, in which anybody over 50 is viewed like a feeble and abused rescue dog, in need of all sorts of special care and discounts. Among my least favorite phrases are “my journey,” “in this economy,” and “at our age.” It seems that our entire culture is focused towards trivializing, patronizing, minimalizing and frightening people as they begin to be old. Marketers don’t like us – nor do movie and TV and music producers – because we have the fewest years of buying power left. Only the AARP and Pharmaceutical Companies really value us. And boy, do they value us.
And of course profiting on the idea that we are momentarily going to pieces and that only vast amounts of medication, supplemental insurance policies, discounts, tax breaks and surgeries can keep us going. We should not get a puppy, but our money is good. What a devastating way to make people feel useless and unhealthy and insignificant. And how profoundly insensitive.
I was at the hardware store recently and bought some fire starters for the wood stove. I gave the clerk, a gum-chewing woman in her 3o’s, I’d guess, my credit card and she looked at me, sort of bored and disinterested, and asked me if I wanted my “senior discount.” I was surprised.
“Why would I get a discount?”I asked.
She was rattled, bewildered. She had no idea, really. She looked at a card on the cash register. “Well, seniors are entitled to a 6 per cent discount, ” she mumbled, trying to figure out why.
“I don’t need a discount on fire starters,” I said, smiling. “I can afford the $4.5o.” Why, I suggested, don’t you give it to somebody younger, somebody struggling to feed kids, meet the mortgage, find work. Couldn’t they use it more than me? Do you give a discount to the young?, I asked. How bout skipping the movie discount and instead, stop patronizing me and treating me like a frail twig.
By now, she was looking around for the manager, who came skittering over. I was trying to mask it, but I have to confess I was angry. I explained that I didn’t want or need a “senior” discount on a $4.50 purchase, or any other purchase at the hardware store, and perhaps they could give my discount to somebody with children, or who was struggling to pay tuition. Surely, they needed it more than me. They were both just stunned. No one, said the manager, had ever refused a senior discount. How wonderful, I said, to be the first. I thought both of them were going to pass out. After much nodding and mumbling, I gave each of them a notecard (I had two in my camera bag) and left. Maybe there is something to this grumpy thing.
Clare is wonderful to feel that way and speak up for herself. She is learning what it means to be healthy. She is experiencing that life changing idea of grasping that she is being made to feel crazy for being sane. I told her she needs to find a new friend, one who doesn’t try to define her by society’s creepy notions about aging – that you must see a doctor twice a week, take pills daily, replace as many of your parts as you can, and are not fit to love a Wheaton Terrier. Clare, if you want to have some fun, tell your friend you are buying a 100 acre farm with A 140-year-old farmhouse, four barns, donkeys, sheep, cows and dogs and barn cats in a remote corner of upstate New York.
Listen to the blood pressure rising. And then, if you’d like, go do it. You and Daisy will have a romp.
As for me, if I need any discounts at any point in life, I’ll ask.