Friday, August 7, 2015

Perk Up! The Expanded List: A Meaningful List of Rewards for Getting Old



1. Being exempt from having to pay state taxes if we choose not to move to Florida and, if living in Florida, a tax refund for continuing to live with unbearable heat and humidity.

2. A specially designed airline just for seniors that offers reduced rates to see children and grandchildren on flights that have no screaming children on them.

3. The creation of a music genre that has less to do with falling in and out of love and more to do with falling and not being able to get up.

4. Dropping the expectation for tips while dining out.  (Someone in his or her 20s serving someone who has survived into their 50s should be asking for advice, not tips)

5. Separate cinemas for those of us who need the sound effects turned down and the dialogue turned up.  

6. Free subscriptions to any magazine whose primary purpose is to sell products to the very people they freak out with warnings about growing older.

7. The right to vote more than once in order to offset the impact of missing the gray vote due to those of us who get lost on the way to the polling center.

8. A voucher program for internet services to make up for all the irretrievable moments of our lives we spent waiting for the first modems to connect to a server.

9. Free vitamins and herbal supplements that purport to counter the side effects of all the crap we were talked into taking when younger that promised to keep us from growing old.

10. Discounts on trips to the beauty salon/barber, who, let’s be honest, have a lot less work to do when it comes to our hair.

11. Special parking spaces that come equipped with the technology to find us rather than the other way around.