When seniors go malling
In a world that is otherwise configured primarily for millennials, it makes an older person feel appreciated to be rewarded with discounts and priority lanes just for being a senior. I, for one, feel the love.
Go to any mall during off-hours and you will find groups of retired seniors doing their thing together. The men occupy tables at fast food courts and coffee shops, balding pot-bellied geezers, looking like they’re having a board meeting except that they’re all retired with nothing better to do. Daily, they hie over to their favorite hangouts where, over cups of coffee, they get together with their peers to talk shop, analyze the economy, exchange political gossip and get stock market tips, as they ogle the young women passing by.
The women come in their chauffeured cars, tailed by their yayas who carry their umbrellas and handbags. They are well-coiffed and dressed fashionably, but wearing comfortable shoes — sneakers, cross trainers or crocs — for safer walking. Some hold canes. They sweep into the mall peering at shop windows on their way to lunch with the girls, amigas from high school or from work, retirees all, to reminisce about the past and catch up with everyone’s stories — who have been widowed, gone abroad, remarried, or had an affair? Where did they go for the holidays? Their husbands, children, grandchildren, and inevitably, their surgeries and illnesses. After a sumptuous lunch, they go to the movies where their senior citizens’ cards, which deducted 20 percent off their lunch bill, will let them in for free or at a discount — depending on what day of the week it is, and what city issued their cards.
Inside the theater, at that ungodly hour when the rest of the population is in school or at work, most of the audience are seniors — elderly couples on a date, or individuals who simply need a cool place to have an afternoon nap. The ladies who lunch come to be entertained by anything that moves. It is discomforting seeing little old ladies sitting through hot and sexy films or fast-paced and violent movies. I’ve sat in a theater where a group of confused elderly women kept asking each other what was going on.
But hey, the movies are free, and what better way to spend a lazy afternoon with one’s amigas?
With two of my college classmates from long ago, we went to a mall in Cubao on a busy weekday without a caregiver or a car and driver to assist us. One of us had a problem walking. It wasn’t easy for her to get in and out of a vehicle, but our Grab driver was patient and solicitous. However, when we got to the mall entrance, there was no ramp and we had to help our friend negotiate the stairs with her slow baby steps.
Luckily, the mall had wheelchairs our friend could use for free, and elevators that allowed us to wheel her up and down the mall floors, into stores and restaurants, the movie theater and the PWD toilet without a problem. We must have been quite a sight, me with my head of silver hair and wearing unglamorous but safe rubber shoes, pushing the wheelchair of a woman with jet-black hair, wearing Crocs, while our other friend cleared the way for our small parade.
Wheelchairs make the mall experience so convenient and the management should be commended for making them freely accessible to those who need them. Not only did it allow us to navigate the mall with ease, we got priority treatment everywhere. The crowds parted for us; the waiters, security guards and movie ushers were solicitous. And our senior citizen’s cards made it so much fun.
We were having so much fun, we didn’t realize how late it was. When we left the mall at rush hour, we were escorted by two security guards who stayed with us until we were safely ensconced in a cab and they could bring the wheelchair back to the concierge. There was no long wait for a ride. We were given the first available cab.
There’s never been a better time to be a senior citizen in this country. Besides, discounts in restaurants, hotels, pharmacies, hospitals, Point to Point buses and other forms of local travel, at a jeepney, bus or taxi stop where riders line up dutifully for a ride, senior citizens are made to jump the line. And best of all, in a bank, no matter how many clients are waiting for their numbers to be called, the priority lane for seniors has allowed me to be in and out in five minutes.
In a world that otherwise is configured primarily for millennials, it makes an older person feel appreciated to be rewarded with discounts and priority lanes, just for being a senior. I, for one, feel the love.
In these days of runaway inflation, when everything is becoming more expensive and beyond reach, the senior citizen’s card and the privileges it grant, provide great consolation to the elderly, especially when, once in a while, it allows us the pleasure of spending a lazy day, at discounted rates, at the mall.
