Rock and Roll at 60!

This year I had my 60th birthday. Notice I did not say "celebrate" nor "bemoan" my birthday. My attitude was more like "denial." Is that bad? Once a therapist told me to pretend I liked my then-husband because they would alter my behavior to be more positive toward him, and it worked! I positively knew I wanted a divorce. So what have we learned here? If I pretend I don't care about being 60 I don't have to be 60? What really happened is that I learned I didn't have to feel or act like a 60-year-old. Sadly, very sadly, I do have to look like one until I can come up with money to have work done. When old people, meaning people older than I am, get together they end up talking about their aches and pains, their medical procedures and their grandchildren. I do not ever want to do that. I just want to talk about Senior Citizen Discounts. They rock! I was out with some female friends recently, and a good part of the conversation was sharing what places have Senior discounts. You've got your discounts at movie theaters, on airline tickets, at Wendy's, and best of all at stores. For a while I have been getting very politically correct comments from employees at movie theaters and fast food restaurants that go like this: "If you are over we have a Senior discount." The first time this happened was at Ross Dress For Less. The comment froze me in place. I didn't know how to react. I was torn between my incredible penny pinching ways (yes, it is possible to be classy and stylish on a budget), and my incredible vanity over how young I want to look (thanks for saying I never seem to age!). What to do? What to do?!?! Well, I took the discount because, after all, it was a discount for being 55 or older, and that's not so old. The most recent time it happened was at a national movie chain. My husband and I tried to buy our tickets from the computer kiosk, but it was not working, so we had to buy them from the young man (a whippersnapper, really) who was at the counter. The theater employee said "Are either of you Seniors, because you can save $2.50 per ticket." This was about a week before my 60th birthday, and I had no intention of going gently into the black hole of seniorhood until pushed in, but my slightly older and entirely gray-haired husband replied "Yes, we are!" Obviously he is both comfortable with his age and too tight to let me have this one more full priced ticket event. I said nothing and moped into the movie. Only later did I learn that we had broken the law by getting me a Senior ticket because at that movie theater the Senior age is 62. The movie guy thought I looked 62! All my thoughts of going back to that theater to return the $2.50 went out the window then! Aside from the Golden Corral discount hours called "Afternoon Delight," I am going to embrace this Senior discount concept. If "Afternoon Delight" now means a food buffet of short ribs and fluffy tasteless desserts eaten between 1 - 4 PM, I need to grab my man and go on a motorcycle trip. Think "Born To Be Wild" by Steppenwolf. And as long as I can get time off from work, and that crazy, freestyle road trip takes us near lots of bathrooms and medical facilities that can check blood levels and pacemakers, let's roll!