Gimmie My Discount-Just Don’t Call Me a Senior Citizen

So there you are..traveling along the road of life and one day you open up a menu and it say's, "Senior Citizen Discount for 55 and Up."

Senior Citizen?

I don't want to come off all politically correct here...but "Senior Citizen" really?  Hey, punk, were the generation of The Beatles, Woodstock, The Summer of Love. When did we become senior citizens? Isn't there another name for it? Fellow Boomers, does it bother you to be called a "senior citizen?'

Seems baby boomers regard the term “senior citizen” as something that describes their parents, not them.

“There is definitely a different mindset between boomers and the World War II generations and the language you use encapsulates everything,” says Jo Ann Ewing, senior services coordinator for the town of East Hampton, CT.

This means that in order to avoid offending the lucrative boomer customer base, businesses often replace the phrase “senior discount” with something else. For example, the AARP, which calls its membership of people 50 and over “members” instead of “seniors,” doesn’t offer “senior benefits” or “senior discounts,” but rather “member benefits.”

I don't think I want to be called a "member" either. Sounds like a put-down. "Bobs a hard worker, but he can be a real member sometimes."

Maybe I don't want to be called anything at all because of my age. A few years back I had my first role in a movie. The movie, "Mercy" was about a guy who serves 25 years for murder. The lead character gets out of prison and tries (unsuccessfully) to start a new life. The movie garnered 5 Accolade Awards and the independent film critics were very nice in their reviews. But there was one review that really got me.

The reviewer started with, "Mercy"  is the story of and elderly man who...I stopped right there!  "An elderly man?" I was all of 54 at the time. If the rest of the review hadn't been so nice, I would have booked a flight to Canada and kicked the critics scrawny butt.

The problem is, we have to be called something, right? Otherwise, what do they put on the menu? Boomer Discount? People Who Have Lived Longer Than People Who Are 54? Ex-Hippies?

I don't know. How do you feel about it?

Here ya go...Follow this link to the 929 The Lake  FaceBook page and come up with an alternative to "Senior Citizen"  FACEBOOK

[Time]