I am aged, and I like it. I particularly enjoy the compliments. After living with an average body and a face not worthy of note, I find that I really enjoy hearing people comment that I don’t look 64.
This happens a fair amount in Saint Louis. I find it happens regularly when I ask what the age threshold is for senior discounts. I know. I’m shameless. I’m pathetic. Pity me.
I was expecting the same treatment in Chicago. Here’s what I heard in Chicago:
- “Well, you can take the stairs up to the gallery – or perhaps you need the elevator?”
- “If you need assistance, ma’am, we can help you get to your compartment.”
- ”The check-out counter is at the end of this aisle. Be sure to get your senior discount.”
Well, the check-out counter remark I dismissed given that my basket held Poise pads and a heating pad for the freezing cold train ride back. But the others? Disheartening.
It was especially sad because I really was clawing my way back into doing things like The Kids Today. Every purchase was Apple Pay; every ride was Uber. But I resigned myself that — even with my many many Uber rides and Apple Pay purchases — I needed to accept I was a senior citizen by Chicago standards.
Later, after a hundred dollars’ worth of Ubering, I thought, “Maybe Uber has a senior discount. Maybe I can get this to work for me.” So I poked around in Preferences.
“Are you a senior?” the app asked.
“I don’t think so, you tell me,” I thought, and clicked Yes to see if I qualified, and it didn’t tell me. So I just gave up.
Oddly, the next two Uber drivers I called couldn’t get their app to go into drive mode. I called a cab to get me to the Frank Lloyd Wright house and paid with cash like an old lady.
The problem with the driver app happened again on my return trip. I just gave that Uber driver all my remaining folding money and we did it off the books.
Once inside the hotel I doubled down into old lady mode and called Uber to complain.
They explained there’s a bug in the Uber driver’s app that if you are a passenger who requires special attention, like you want the driver to call you on the phone, or you’re a SENIOR because you never changed that setting back, then this bug flares up.
“Well that sounds suspiciously convenient for them,” I said, and they said, “No, really, it’s a bug.” And I pointedly turned off that senior setting and I will never use it again, even if someday I need the driver to lift my oxygen tank into the SUV.
The next evening, I successfully Ubered to a gay bar that gay friends had recommended, and it soothed my soul because it was packed full of men as happy as they could be. Never have I seen so smiling men in one place, all full of winks and joy and bare bellies and hugs. Men with the Y chromosome who were not yet cranky. It made me smile a little.
Then they carded me. That made me smile a lot.
They card everyone, it seems, but still.