(Medicare’s new nap benefit)
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Well, America, 21 August was National Senior Day, in case you missed it or, like me, had a senior moment and forgot about it. But don’t worry, fellow national seniors – it’ll be here again next year.

Let’s just hope we are.

National Senior Citizens Day was declared in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan, who thought he was signing something else. Of the 1,500-plus official national days in the US, Senior Day is unique: it’s the only national day of recognition that everybody celebrates, except the people being recognized.

No, people over age fifty-five aren’t particularly happy about National Senior Citizens Day, assuming they’re even awake. “Senior” people, as a rule, aren’t busy partying over the exciting side-effects of getting old, like colonoscopies, unscheduled flatulence, and eyebrow dandruff. Seniors are busy trying to decide if they should take a chance on eating pizza after 8pm, and wondering why everybody’s always talking about Medicare Part B. What happened to Part A? It’s a mystery on the scale of the strange non-existence of #1 pencils.

And as if aging wasn’t odd enough, the approach of seniorhood brings its own confusions. There’s no real consensus on the exact age that you officially become a card-carrying senior. Some entities insist it’s age sixty-five, others sixty, still others less. And then there’s the relentless AARP lobby, which I think must be an abbreviation for “Advertising Assault of Relentless Proportions.” The AARP started sending me personalized plastic membership cards when I was in, I think, the fifth grade, just in case I wanted to be very proactive about my golden years.

Medicare claims you have to be sixty-five to qualify, except when you don’t. But, not surprisingly, government-sponsored medical coverage is simultaneously sloppy and complex. Here’s an actual quote from Medicare.gov:

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“Medicare doesn’t cover everything. If you need certain services Medicare doesn’t cover, you’ll have to pay for them yourself unless you have a Medicare health plan that covers them.”
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Crystal clear, eh? Your plan doesn’t cover you, unless your plan does. It does and doesn’t. That’s just cruel. As someone once said, “To err is human. To really screw things up, you need to get the government involved.”

To be sure, there are valuable benefits to being fifty-plus, like discounts, feigned respect from teenagers, and the constant threat of being fired and replaced by someone much younger (aka, cheaper). And we’ll probably be the last generation of Homo sapiens capable of completing a sentence without typing LOL, or reaching for an emoji.

Here’s a breakdown of some senior citizen discounts:

• The Humane Society offers pet adoption discounts to anyone over age fifty, but their little insider secret is they’re calculating the adopter’s age in dog years. That way, when you’re fifty again, you’re gonna need another dog.
• At McDonald’s, Krispy Kreme, and Fuddruckers, discounts kick in at age fifty-five. Because, you know, it’s never too soon to start sucking down fried potatoes, processed sugar, and double cheeseburgers.
• Burger King makes you wait till you’re sixty to get a discount. This is their marketing department’s revenge for all those years of letting you “have it your way.”
• At Denny’s, you can start getting your golden years discount at age fifty-five, but then I’ve never seen anybody at Denny’s who’s younger than that. With all those discounts, I don’t know how they stay in business.
• You have to survive to age sixty-five to earn a discount at Taco Bell. The downside is, if you load up on that stuff due to the discount, you’ll never see sixty-six.
• Some movie theaters will give you a discount if you’re over sixty, which is handy if you’ve reached the age where you’re on a fixed income. After subtracting the senior discount, theater popcorn is nearly less expensive than a Volvo.
• By the way, if you do frequent Fuddruckers, be very careful when visiting their bakery section. Once, while trying to order some Mother Fuddruckers cookies, I had a senior moment, got tongue-twisted trying to say “Mother Fuddruckers,” and nearly cursed out the clerk.

Finally, before I take off for my second nap, I’ll share an old joke about old guys.

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An eighty-year-old man steps into the confessional.

Golden Guy: Father, I have sinned. Last weekend, I made love to two eighteen-year-old girls.
Priest: I see. How long has it been since your last confession?
Golden Guy: Never made a confession. I’m not Catholic.
Priest: Then why are you telling me about this?
Golden Guy: Hey, man, I’m tellin’ everybody.
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