Does your age fluctuate?

No, my age stays the same forever.

I’m 47 and have been asked for my id buying wine in the last month.

The closest to what you are talking about is that I have taken my kid out to eat and bought the kids pizza buffet at a local family restaurant and nothing but a drink for myself, but ate a piece or two of what he brought to the table.

Did you feel guilty, or just hungry?

@Here2_4 I was a bit hungry and they charge plenty, so not really guilty.

Three friends and I obtained IDs at a local community college in order to get into bars. This was when we were a year under the drinking age and still in high school. That was 35 years ago, and I still feel guilty about doing it.

No & It bothers me no end that more often than not, I forget to take advantage of senior discounts.

Too young looking to get the senior discount. I rarely buy liquor but laws are they have to ID, but I know nobody’s saying I look 21, it’s just a formality.

I do think the kid’s meal at the diner is plenty, and it’s between 5 and 7 bucks, but on my own, I don’t think they’d give it to me. When my kid gets it, sure, I’ll eat some of it.

Hmmm. I had a fake ID when I was 18; on my 21st birthday the waitress at the bar I used to hangout wouldn’t give me the traditional free birthday drink because I had been going there for years.

And my daughter passed for 12 at movies until she was 16.

@jca many places will serve what is called a half portion for light eaters. They don’t advertise it most places, but if you ask, many will say yes. If they don’t do that, you could ask if they would let you order the kids’ meal. They might.

I suppose by the criteria mentioned in your details, yes it does. I don’t ask what age the senior discount is, but I sometimes ask if there’s a senior discount. Usually the cashier then automatically gives me a senior discount.
When the big national multiplex theater chain bought the local not-as-big national multiplex theater chain in my town, they raised the senior discount age from 55 to 62. I didn’t tell them that I was no longer eligible, I just asked if I could still get a senior discount. The gave me the discount. (For the persnickety snarkers, a friend mentioned it in passing, I’m not running some vile senior scam)

I don’t feel guilty. If they asked for ID, or specified the age when I asked, I wouldn’t lie about it, but they don’t ask.

And @jca, I will sometimes request to order a kid’s meal, I’ve never been denied. Give it a try. :-)

I lied a few times to get a student discount after I’d long since ceased being a student. That was before the proliferation of photo IDs. I was carded for my ID when buying alcohol until I was well into my thirties, which used to gall me to no end. I haven’t been in the states as a senior long enough to take advantage of senior discounts. I remember feeling a bit morose when, out of the blue, I received my AARP member application in the mail.

Up until I left St. Lucia spring a year ago, people generally guessed that I was in my late forties or early fifties and I looked in better shape than a lot of American thirty-somethings (I’m 62) which was a deception, but a gift of fate and a welcome one. Since then I’ve spent a hot summer in the Yucatan interior exploring Mayan ruins, was hospitalized while in Cuba, then,. feeling the pangs of mortality and the ticking clock, I sailed 10,000 miles solo from Cuba to Ascension Island and back to St. Lucia. I barely made it into Barbados where I spent a week in a hospital due to exhaustion. Then the short hop back to the farm on St. Lucia.

When I got back here my produce buyer, who was visibly shocked at my appearance, but always one for the unblemished truth, said I looked like I was in my seventies. My hair is noticeably thinner and grey at the temples (the beginnings of malnutrition), my beard is now snow-white, my skin like dark, wrinkled leather and I’ve lost a lot of muscle mass. I have a slight stoop that I hadn’t had a year ago. I’ll get some of it back with a decent diet, proper hydration, rest. Regular yoga should straighten out the stoop. But most importantly, it is valuable to know, beyond all doubt when it is time to scale it back and keep the distances between friendly ports a bit shorter. I’m older now and I look it, and that’s OK. Now maybe people will stop asking me to lift heavy things for them.

@Espiritus_Corvus My adored friend, your news troubles me greatly. Please take good care of yourself. You are cared for from many corners. If you show up here, I’ll be sure to fatten you up. ((Klem og nuss)) PS, don’t sail here. take a plane.

Many years ago my friends and I entered the house of blues in Chicago to “listen to the music”. A few hours later I was being kicked off the hotel piano for playing drunken moonlight sonata. I was 19 at the time and very grateful for an apathetic doorman there at the house of blues. Grateful, that is, until the next morning when I experienced my first really terrible hangover.

When I was a kid my mom would cheat by a year or so and say I was a little younger to pay child admission prices or bus prices, that sort of thing. She was incredibly honest about other things. I remember once a cashier rang up decorative pillows and the total was around $30 too cheap and my mom quickly pointed it out. I think partly because my mom cares about being honest (funny after saying she lied about my age once or twice) and because she would worry the girl could get in trouble.

@jca I buy kids meals for myself at McDonald’s. I don’t think that is dishonest in any way shape or form. I know some sit down restaurants don’t allow it and I think that is ridiculous.

@JLeslie: Yes, McDonalds doesn’t care because maybe the kid is sitting at the table or it’s drive-thru and the kid is elsewhere. I should try it at the diner and take my chances. For “to go” orders, they’d probably have no reason to argue, as the kid could be elsewhere, too. At a table, when it’s just me sitting there, it will be interesting. I’ll try it one day. Usually the menus say “for 12 and under, please.”

I will buy the kids meal for myself at Sonic because that’s the only way to get a grilled cheese (non-meat) sandwich.

There is a discount food market that gives a senior discount, and I simply say, “Can I get the senior discount?” I always get it, but if they questioned me, I would admit that I’m not 55+ and pay what they charged.

Only when I was young. When I was 14, 15, 16, or 17 it always crept up to 18. I wasn’t a good kid.

I forgot that when I was 16 and 17 I used to go to clubs posing as 18.

@jca I once, many years ago, was told by a waitress I couldn’t order off of the kids menu when I tried to. I was a teenager at the time.

@JLeslie: I’ve found that waitresses (or “wait staff”) are often more compliant with giving things that are not supposed to be given. It’s maybe the management that might notice and cause a problem for the waitress. For example, when my daughter orders the kids’ meal, it’s supposed to come with milk, apple or orange juice but she wants ice tea. The waitress gives it to her but it’s “shhh!” and I take care of the waitress with the tip.

@jca I would have thought it was the waitress in my case who was hoping for a bigger tip with a more expensive meal.

What are the ethics of accepting a senior discount when you are not a senior?

I would think the business is making money on the senior discounts in most cases, so the adult price is just extra profit. Since I’m annoyed with the extreme greed in many businesses today, I don’t feel too bad about someone paying a reasonable price because they are a year or two different in age from the requirement. Although, my guess is we younger people are in some ways subsidizing the lower price in some instances.

When I was younger, my parents used to do this with me all the time to get the “kid” price of things.

I can’t do it with my kid. He looks, easy, at least two years older than he is.

Technically, by some standards I am a senior at age 55 but I have yet to ask or capitalize on any senior discounts. My local regal movie theater doesn’t recognize 55 as senior, think it is 62 or 65, I don’t really know. I was told I didn’t look my age recently buying alcohol. I think I do look my age, not older, not younger, but pretty squarely my age.

I don;t go to Dennys, I guess I could get a grand Slam breakfast with the senior discount which is 55. lol

When I was 9, my grandfather had my mother get a “postcard birth certificate” (still have it) because he couldn’t get me into the baseball game for under 12 years old.
At 14 I played in jazz and piano bars with a couple of older guys, the bartender use to send beers over to all of us.

You pick an age you like, then stick with it.

Nope.

I don’t think anyone has the right to demand my age, so I wouldn’t ever consider it to be a case of me lying if I let someone assume what my age was and they were wrong.

@RocketGuy You pick an age you like, then stick with it.

I tried that. Mine just kept growing!

I got my first senior discount at age 51 (about 15 years ago) when we were at a thrift store. The manager of this store and I had worked together for a different employer a few years before. He looked at me and said, “It’s senior Tuesday.” He then nodded his head as if to convince me to reply in the affirmative as he asked, “You’re over 55, aren’t you?”

No, I have always been in denial about my age. When I got my Medicare card, my reaction was, how funny that the government thinks that I am old. I have since discovered the discounts I can get with that card and use it every chance I get. I am glad that I had the sense to laminate it. It costs me $1 each way to get into Philadelphia by rail from the suburbs and an additional $1 to get to the airport.

I remember a year or two ago I went into Kroger on a Wednesday (which is Senior Discount Day) – they rang up my bill and it was 5% less that I thought it was supposed to be.

I asked the checker – is that a mistake? She answered “I rang up the senior discount.” and then she asked “You’re over 60, right?”

I wasn’t at the time.

I didn’t know whether to be pleased or insulted.

@elbanditoroso
It seems the centuries have not been kind to you.

Today I feel like I am 87. Man…..a full kick ass morning of all kinds of activity, chores, etc. and still have an agenda a mile long and…it is freaking HOTTER than HELL. lol
It is only 11am and I’m ready to hide in the AC for the rest of the day.

A few years ago I went to the cinema with a friend. I was about 40 at the time. My friend was 22. The cashier said “two junior tickets?”, meaning, he thought we were both under 17. We would have gotten away with it, if I hadn’t immediately cracked up laughing.

Wow! Could you confide to me the location of the fountain of youth? There must be enough water for one more.

@Here2_4 Do you really want to know? ask a Q!

@Here2_4 Don’t smoke, use sunscreen and choose your parents well.

@Here2_4
witchcraft

@Here2_4 According to his memoires, Ponce de Leon discovered the Fountain of Youth during his exploration of the northeast Florida coastline, on a thin strip of land between the San Sebastian and Matanzas Rivers in what is now the Ponce de Leon Archaelogical Park off Magnolia Ave. in north St. Augustine, Florida. It’s actually a very serene place away from the tourist hustle and bustle. And it’s just two blocks north of the much more popular Castillo San Marcos and the Authentic Old Jail. Oh, and only a block north the Ripley’s Believe it or not Museum. You might have to wade through thick clusters of souvenir and t-shirt kiosks to get there from the parking lot. Godspeed.

Sad. It is a very pretty little town, but the loud shops, restaurants, kiosks with thick crowds of overweight, overheated tourists clogging the sidewalks ruin it.

There is a possibility that the Fountain of Youth was an allegory for the Bahamian Love Vine, which locals brew today as an aphrodisiac. Bimini is exactly 50 nautical miles 90 degrees by the compass off Miami about 300 land miles south of St. Augustine. Some navigator. In the meantime, he committed his share of atrocities in his manic effort to get the the locals to tell him where the oro was. There wasn’t any in Florida. “Matanza” means “slaughter” in Spanish. The river ran with blood. Nice legacy. Bloody ponce.

My remark was referring to @downtide‘s claim to be mistaken for under 17 at the age of 40. Sorry that I didn’t make myself more clear.
@Espiritus_Corvus , exciting History and geography.

@Espiritus_Corvus …the Bahamian Love Vine, which locals brew today as an aphrodisiac
Sounds like Love Portion #9!