Junk Mail Seems to Have our Numbers

I’m beginning to dread the mail.

At 22, as soon as I graduated from college, I began receiving the first in a long line of credit card applications.  Had I known then what I know now about interest rates, credit ratings and the dangers of paying a minimum balance, I would have ripped the offers in two and thrown them in the trash.  Sadly, I learned the hard way about the evils of “buy now-pay later”, a lesson I’m still trying hard to master more than 25 years later.

In my mid-thirties, my child bearing years, I began receiving coupons in the mail for baby formula, diapers and Gymboree classes.  Once again, marketers had correctly guessed my stage of life and were targeting my interests accordingly.

Now that I am on the backside of my forties (or more accurately, almost all the way over that particular hill), I shudder to think what is waiting in my mailbox.  My husband, who is a year older than me, is giving me a sneak preview.

My husband turned 50 on October 27.  On October 28, he received an application in the mail from the AARP, formerly known as the American Association for Retired Persons.  They are only known by AARP now because they cater to more than just retired seniors.  And while I previously believed it to be a club for just the 65 and over crowd, they are now recruiting members as young as…you guessed it…50! 

My husband tossed aside the application, muttering under his breath.  A month later, a second application arrived.  AARP is nothing if not persistent.  A few months after that, my husband received an even more disturbing piece of mail:  an information packet from a funeral home.  There was no muttering this time, just full volume grumbling.   It was a challenge back in our 30’s having to face the task of creating a will that would provide for our children.   And now just 15 years later we’re already being solicited to pick out a casket? 

Recently my husband received another piece of mail, this one an invitation to a dinner seminar with a most unfortunate title  “But what if I live?” The seminar focuses on healthcare costs, retirement options, Social Security and other financial topics that concern those who might live to a ripe old age.  I get it.  You need to be prepared.  But that title still creeps me out.  Don’t we want to live a long, happy life?  It’s hard enough to prepare for my eventual death.  The statement “But what if I live?” sends the message that living might be the less preferred option.  How reassuring.

It’s time for me to steel myself against the onslaught of mail catering to my current demographic.  I imagine I’ll soon start receiving ads for hearing aids and Hoveround chairs.  Wilfred Brimley will urge me to order diabetes-testing equipment online (or as he pronounces it, “dye-a-biddies”).  I’ll receive phone calls from the unfortunately named Tom Kruse, not the blockbuster actor but the founder and pitchman for The Scooter Store.  He’ll ask me if I have limited mobility and assure me that he can work with my insurance company to get me a scooter at little or no cost to me.

Back when I was that new college graduate, I actually thought 50 was old.  Now that I’m almost 50, I understand that old is my current age plus fifteen years.  It doesn’t help matters that I still feel like that immature 22-year-old on the inside, albeit one who can’t read menus in dimly lit restaurants and needs a good 20 seconds to get up from a kneeling position, leaning heavily on a counter while doing so.

So thank you, AARP, for forcing open the doorway to my golden years a good decade before I expected it.  Far be it for me to live in the past, clutching Gymboree coupons to my chest, wailing about my lost youth.  I’ll face the future with good grace. And if I happen to receive a diaper coupon in the mail, will it upset me?

Depends.