"RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT"

In a store recently, a clerk asked my companion, who was in front of me, "Are you more than 50?" My friend who is not yet 50, was humiliated and screaked, "Do I look 50?"

I asked the clerk, "You DO know that you are NOT supposed to ask that, don't you?" He answered, "That's how I find out if you get a senior discount." I said, "That is ageism; I'm quite sure if you ask your manager you will learn that the proper question is to ask whether we have any coupons or discounts." He said, "Nobody told us that." I said, "You see, by asking that question the customers can decide whether they want to use the Golden Buckeye Card or the AARP card, both of which your store honors."

He actually called the manager who knows me very well. She instructed him that I was correct.

I ALWAYS use my discount cards and, coincidentally, in that same store I had reminded a new clerk that she hadn't asked if I had any coupons or discounts.

A a restaurant recently I was dining with several women who are older than I. After the waiter had used the term "girls" three different times to refer to us, I asked, "Well, tell me Sonny, how big do they grow women where you come from?" One of my companions squealed, "Ooooh, I like it." I said, "It's offensive." Another companion said that I am "too sensitive". I said, "My husband says I'm as sensitive as an old brown shoe!" The waiter said, "Maybe I should say ladies." I said "No, we're not girls or ladies, we're women." He said, "I was just trying to ask you all at one time." I said, "Then you should have used the term YOU ALL." When he left the area, two of the women lambasted my behavior. I said, "I fail to understand WHY you like it; it is so patronizing." I said, "Hell, I was going to give him a 20% tip; he didn't have to try that ingratiating BS!"

I have no embarrassment about my age and readily answer if anyone asks. At one of my birthday parties last year a guest actually tittered and asked, cutely, "Are you 29 again?" I answered, telling my age, and I asked, "Why do you want to know, are you with the Census?" WHY on earth do people say such stupid things--did she really think I would lie about my age--or did she say it just to try to embarrass me?


I also dislike it when people bring insulting presents to emphasize age--such as Depends--and give insulting cards. At the birthday party for a sister-in-law who turned 70, a number of people brought what they obviously thought were CUTE age-related gifts; she was mortified. I comforted her by saying, "We just know people with no class!" Gerald has a relative who seems to relish embarrassing people about age; he's actually put signs in the yards of relatives telling motorists to honk, showing the age on the sign. When that happened to another relative, she was very angry; she called me and I went to her house and I knocked the sign over so that it couldn't be read!

I love the Dylan Thomas poem: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.