The Dreaded AARP Letter (04.18.
It arrived in the mail several days ago. All of us dread the day it happens, and my husband is no exception.
When he came home from work that day, I told him there was a surprise for him on the mail table. We walked in there together, hand in hand. I found the envelope and slowly handed it to him.
His face, first filled with anticipation, slowly lost its color. As he glanced at the return address, he shook his head in denial, then his cheeks turned crimson with the knowledge that he couldn’t hide from these people.
The Mafia? The IRS? Nope, none of the above. It was from AARP.
He wouldn’t open it immediately. He carried it back to our bedroom and let it sit there for a while before he would look at it again. He had to get used to the idea before he could deal with it.
I guess it’s no secret, since it was flashing across the bank’s sign all day. My husband’s birthday was last week, and it was a big one. The big five-oh. 50 big ones.
I suppose there are some benefits to turning fifty. Like at some stores you get a discount when you shop on Tuesdays. It’s just hard to believe we’re old enough to get senior discounts because in my mind we are still really young people. I don’t know who that person in the mirror is, but she’s much fatter than I am, and the wrinkles around her eyes are worse than mine, too.
My husband says he didn’t have a problem turning thirty. Or forty. But fifty is bothering him. Half a century has a certain ring to it, you know. He says he can remember when he was a teenager, and how utterly boring and ancient a 50-year-old was. And here he is.
He doesn’t particularly enjoy big doo-dahs to celebrate these things, and he has threatened that if I ever throw him a surprise party, he’d jump out of the window. So we didn’t have the big “Over the Hill” bash like a lot of people do, but that left a lot of people out there who wanted to “help” him commemorate this momentous occasion.
So he celebrated with his extended family two weeks ago, then last week we celebrated with my extended family. There were lots of funny cards, clever gifts, and slaps on the back. He went fishing with buddies on his actual birthday; he thought being away from the office would spare him the humiliation of it all. Of course, his absence gave the people at his office the perfect opportunity to decorate his office.
He had black balloons everywhere and a black tablecloth over his desk. And the aforementioned sign on the outside of the building was telling the whole world just how old he was.
No, there’s no escaping turning 50. And even if you don’t want people to make a big deal out of it, they’re gonna do it anyway.
And of course, AARP isn’t going to let you forget it either.
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