I am a card-carrying senior citizen. So what I will now be getting into is something that makes me uncomfortable.
When I became a senior citizen and got my card, I was happy to be officially entitled to enjoy certain privileges. Nevertheless, entitled as I was, I vowed to always remember to use those privileges judiciously. It is the least I can do to express my gratitude to society for the tender mercies shown toward seniors like me.
I specially enjoyed this special treatment when my wife and I traveled to California two years ago when her siblings sponsored our first trip together outside the country.
In airports from Manila to Los Angeles and back, we were whisked ahead of the long line of passengers. No waiting in line, no long questioning at immigration and customs. Establishments in California are quite senior-friendly, as the elderly are always given special consideration wherever we went.
Thus, I am dismayed and embarrassed whenever I discover seniors taking advantage of discount privileges to the hilt and even flaunting it. Even those who are wealthy use their discount cards for every transaction, no matter how small the amount of purchase. I remember what my late daughter-in-law told me when she was a store manager of a fast-food franchise in Greenhills: Well-off residents were quick to flash their discount cards even for just a cup of coffee. They were the most vocal and adamant about their discount, even nitpicking about the amount to the last centavo. Walang patawad.
It is therefore painful for me to say that some senior citizens don’t deserve the privileges accorded to them. Bato bato sa langit, ang tamaan huwag magalit.
It reminds me of a recent news reports about a new policeman who suddenly barged into the ER room of a hospital and demanded to be treated first. When it was explained to him that he had to be tested for Covid as part of general protocol, he refused and threatened the attending health workers with words to this effect: “Sinabi ko nang pulis ako. Kung dala ko lang ang baril ko pinagbabaril ko na kayo.” Give someone the right to carry a gun and he will use it at the first opportunity to use it just because he can.
In the same way, given the privilege to enjoy discounts, should a senior citizen flaunt it at every opportunity?
I know some who let their young relatives use the privilege for the discounts even if that is not allowed by law. No one seems to want to call them out. When I tell my fellow seniors about it, they just shrug and say I am too scrupulous.
Abusive seniors forget that entrepreneurs have to make a little profit too. When I tell my wife to buy rice porridge (lugaw or goto) to take home for our afternoon snack, she no longer cares to brandish our discount cards. It’s our way of helping the poor retail owner, who has to pay for the rent and the salary of his employee. Konti na lang ang kita, mababawasan pa, as my wife would say. Besides, processing senior discounts takes a while and can inconvenience others, which is often true.
But there are more dismaying things about entitled seniors, other than the discount card.
I will never forget that one trip on the LRT in pre-pandemic days when I was so mortified with the way a senior lady comported herself. As you know, the front coach is reserved for senior citizens and persons with disability, separated by a chain from the rest of the train. It so happened that the train on that day was jam-packed. Seeing there was space at the special area for seniors, two young college students inadvertently stepped over to the special section. I did not mind and gave them a knowing wink because I pitied the poor passengers.
But then the senior lady (apparently a teacher or school principal) saw it as her duty to give the youngsters a blistering lesson on good manners and right conduct. She loudly castigated and berated the poor fellows for God knows how long that everybody wanted to tell her to stop already. She even demanded to get their names and addresses so she could report them to their school management. Mercifully, another senior lady who couldn’t take anymore asked the cantankerous old lady to let it go, seeing how the poor young men were publicly shamed enough. This was a clear case of going overboard, tantamount to verbal abuse by an entitled senior who should have known better.
Is there a psychological explanation for these explosions of verbal aggression by seniors, which are happening more frequently as they get older? Is it because we do not express our needs or ourselves as clearly as we once did? Maybe so. But our frustration, in this case with ourselves, does not grant us any right to treat others disrespectfully.
It seems that the onset of more aches, more chronic illness, more limitations of aging have embittered many of us. They resort to gruffness and abuse, as if taking revenge through hostility for being robbed of their youth. They are actually enjoying the pain of their age, telling the young: since you now consider me as useless and a nuisance, suffer me gladly you fools, and treat me as someone special.
Perhaps there is a feeling among some of today’s seniors that since they’ve done so much in their youth, society should do whatever they ask, determined to get all they can from privileges bestowed on them. They are claiming as right what it is, in essence, a gift.
The last thing I want is to be looked at as an obnoxious, rude and demanding old fart by young people because of my attitude and behavior. But with the rude and cantankerous behavior displayed by members of my own generation, we can end up displacing the millennials as “the entitlement generation.”
Groucho Marx was heard to have said: “I don’t want to be a member of a club who would accept me as a member.” I sometimes feel the same way with my demographic group. My membership in the senior citizen category makes me uncomfortable at times.
To my fellow card carrying seniors, transform that attitude into gratitude. Let’s try not to be a conspicuous nuisance. Let us be mindful and considerate to those who are waiting behind us. If we have to cut into any line, at least try to look apologetic and grateful to the people who have been there earlier and made to endure waiting in line.
Let us serve as models of how to use our privileges, in a mature, responsible way. Be an inspiration in the sunset of your life. Like the concluding scene of old movies in which the gunfighter hero or the tramp heads toward the sunset, bring your life to a satisfying ending that elicits applause, not boos.