At a certain point, I started being courted by the AARP.
“AARP” stands for American Association of Retired Persons.
I was well below their age minimum, which is 50, though really 50 is just the age for receiving benefits; they take anyone aged 18 and up. However, I figured their early start at wooing potential new members was well planned out.
They no doubt instinctively knew, or certainly had learned from experience, that we are all delusional on everlasting youth; no one wants to face up being on the downhill side of over-the-hill.
They clearly already had figured out that the first mailing they sent out would be thrown away immediately, the receiver in shock and denial and insulted over being thought ‘to be getting old.’
They figured it would take a few years to face up to it. They were getting me used to the idea so that by the time I really was their threshold age of 50, I would have stopped throwing away their mailings and perhaps be more likely to open them.
When I first got a mailing from the AARP, I sent a picture of it to the family in our group text, hoping for and getting some sympathy along with some chuckles, and I was not disappointed.
I’ve never been one to use car trunk organizers. It seemed like an oxymoron: Why put something else in the back of your car in your quest to keep the car cleaner?
Yet for some odd reason, when Aldi had car trunk organizers for sale, I bought one.
A week later, lo and behold, in the mailbox was an offer from the AARP: if I joined right now, I’d get a free car trunk organizer.
I took a picture of it and sent the picture on the family group text explaining that this came a mere week after I had bought one.
I was expecting them to laugh with me, not at me, but my brother replied, “Well, you fit the demographic.”
Touché.
Now, though, things have escalated a level to something that had never occurred to me before.
I just got my first solicitation from a local funeral home, inviting me to go ahead and pay in advance for my funeral.
