Thanks to Pocopundit for finding this great Public Health PSA!
Posted on 10/22/2017 3:05:08 PM PDT by SandRat
If you labor under the delusion that there is even a modicum of privacy in our lives, you need a reality check. Just ask any 50-year-old.
Even before you blow out the candles on your Hatching Day cake, your mailbox overflows with letters from AARP. Where do you suppose they get your information? The IRS and other governmental departments who happily sell it to all comers. Wonder who gets to keep the money?
In any case, once AARP has your information, it never stops pestering you. Some people write Return to Sender on the envelopes, but the continued demands to join never end. AARP kills countless trees and clutters the plus-50 folks’ mailboxes in their quest to get your money.
With each year past the half-century mark, other enterprising companies join the stuff-the-mailbox-game. At first, a trickle of letters offer funeral insurance, and then the Neptune Society entices (they assume) with offerings for cremation. There is no need for a zombie apocalypse when ghouls disguised as profit-from-death businesses slink around every corner. What such companies do not realize is some may want to charter a rocket to launch their bodies into outer space instead of a standard burial or cremation.
Imagine you are browsing in a store. The clerk greets you and then proceeds to follow you around. All you want is a few moments of peace as you check out their wares. What do you do if the clerk (also known as the Hound of the Baskervilles) continues to slobber on your heels or shoulders? You become annoyed and leave without purchasing anything.
The response to the plethora of mailings from AARP and other determined companies preying on seasoned citizens is similar. Some return them, while others shred and recycle or burn the junk snail mail. Can you see folks gleefully prancing around a bonfire of junk mail? That would be a sight worth the price of admission.
What such companies, including the Medicare supplementals, forget or never realize is that age is just a number and not an illness. A lady friend reached the age to apply for Medicare as well as a supplement. Within days after the supplemental insurance contract went into effect, the phone calls started. Thank goodness for Caller ID.
In a weak moment, she answered the phone. The supplemental insurance company representative asked her to answer a few survey questions, and she agreed.
Do you have trouble walking?
“I walk two to four miles on the treadmill every day.”
Do you have trouble raising your arms above your head?
“No, but I have trouble reaching things on the top shelf of the cabinet.”
Why?
“Because I’m short.”
Do you feel depressed or lack self-worth?
“Nope.”
Are you suicidal?
“Nope.”
Do you need in-home care?
“No. I don’t need people snooping around my house.”
Do you need assistance going to the store or appointments?
“Nope. I like to drive and enjoy the occasional highway drag race. I tend to have a lead toe.”
Have you had your pneumonia shot this year?
“I did not and will not because the last time I had the pneumonia shot, I barely avoided going into shock.”
Oh! What about your annual flu shot?
“Nope. Every time I got a flu shot, I contracted the flu.”
Would you like information on our silver care wellness program?
“Nope. As I told you, I have a treadmill, free weights and workout every day at home. Don’t want to waste time driving somewhere just to get sweaty with strangers.”
Do you have difficulty stooping?
“I do forty squats every day.”
Wow! I can’t do that many.
The representative was implying that even though she was much younger than the geezer-ette, she was not as fit as the Seasoned Citizen.
Thank you for your time. Let us know if you are interested in any of our services.
“Don’t hold your breath waiting for my call,” the lady muttered as she ended the call.
Age is just a number, not an affliction.
Follow Elizabeth Cowan on Twitter @LizCowan4. Website: www.elizabethcowan.com. Like her Facebook author page: www.facebook.com/Liz.Cowan.Author. Books available on amazon.com. Novels: The Dionysus Connection; The Marathon Man; Sins of the Father Humor Books: Fractured Proverbs and Twisted Thoughts; Through the Keyhole
Apparently aging is a disability.
I see it every time I try to find a parking spot for my wheelchair accessible van.
Getting older isn’t considered a disease now but it will be interesting to see how that changes in the next few years and decades as pills come along to reverse aging. Maybe they will have to be marketed under euphemisms like a cure for muscle degeneration or such. lol
Found this on another website
Seniors Under Attack
THIS IS HAPPENING RIGHT HERE IN OUR OWN COUNTRY!
We Must Stop This Immediately
Have you noticed that stairs are getting steeper ? Groceries are heavier.
And, everything is farther away. Yesterday I walked to the corner and I was
dumbfounded to discover how long our street had become!
And, you know, people are less considerate now, especially the young ones. They speak in whispers all the time! If you ask them to speak up they just
keep repeating themselves, endlessly mouthing the same silent message until
they’re red in the face! What do they think I am, a lip reader?
I also think they are much younger than I was at the same age. On the other
hand, people my own age are so much older than I am. I ran into an old
friend the other day and she has aged so much that she didn’t even recognize
me.
I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair this
morning, and in doing so, I glanced at my own reflection well, REALLY NOW -
even mirrors are not made the way they used to be!
Another thing, everyone drives so fast these days! You’re risking life and
limb if you happen to pull onto the freeway in front of them. All I can say
is, their brakes must wear out awfully fast, the way I see them screech and
swerve in my rear view mirror.
Clothing manufacturers are less civilized these days. Why else would they
suddenly start labeling a size 32 waist pant as 40? Do they think no one
notices? The people who make bathroom scales are pulling the same prank. Do
they think I actually ‘believe’ the number I see on that dial? HA! I would
never let myself weigh that much! Just who do these people think they’re
fooling?
I’d like to call up someone in authority to report what’s going on — but
the telephone company is in on the conspiracy too: they’ve printed the phone
books in suchsmall type that no one could ever find a number in there!
All I can do is pass along this warning: WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!
Unless something drastic happens, pretty soon everyone will have to suffer
these awful indignities.
PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE SO WE CAN GET
THIS CONSPIRACY STOPPED!
PS: I am sending this to you in a larger font size, because something has
happened to my computer’s fonts - they are smaller than they once were.
Thank you.
We turned 50 in the age of Obama. Spouse was first and yes AARP was right on time. After 3 or 4 of their mailings were sent back on their dime, detailing the disgust with their support of Obamacare, the mail stopped. Began again at my number 50 and the same tactic finally stopped the mail. Haven’t had it for 5 years.
Proud of you for doing this. If we don’t fight back, we let them define our lives. Never should we allow this.
Thanks to Pocopundit for finding this great Public Health PSA!
My dad lived past 90 and my mom to 88, passing about 6 months before he did.
They had live independently until about a year earlier, but the wheels had come off due to diminished capacity, each in their own way.
My mom had a quote on a wooden sign. It was Bette Davis saying, “Old Age Ain’t for Sissies.”
LMAO!
Yep. Send back every paper and an unpleasant note in the post-paid return envelope and they’ll stop sending.
Getting old is not a disease. It is an opportunity to join a new identity group that can claim all kinds of entitlements and privilege based on age.
Check how many vendors are not really after your money. They are after government program money. Of course, that money is FREE money and not your money.
Talk to a salesman or navigator for Medicare Supplement/Advantage. The first question out of their mouth is:
“Do you qualify for Medicaid?” Getting you on Medicaid and qualified for Medicaid by going to the right doctors is most important to their commissions.
I’m 50. I started getting seasoned citizen mail at age 49. Fortunately, the solicitations were from AMAC, the conservative alternative to the AARP. So I finally joined them when offered a trial membership. I upped it to 5 years. The socialists at the AARP can stuff it!
“Haven’t had it for 5 years.”
—
Oh,they’ll find you.
I turned 50 THIRTY FIVE YEARS AGO———and I still get AARP mailers,one just this week.
(And I’ve moved twice since turning 50.)
.
I picked up the phone and called AARP and demanded they remove us from their mailing list.
We still get daily:
hearing aid offers
life insurnace
offers
Medicare supplement offers
prescription plan offers
medical equipment offers
pre-paid funeral planners
burial plot offers and...........
home improvement solicitations even though this is a condo
I hate seeing the mail in my husband’s hands every evening. It is nothing but junk and takes nearly thirty minutes to dispose of sometimes. It’s really bad when all the conservative organizations want money too.
How The Post Office Sells Your Address Update To Anyone Who Pays ...
https://www.forbes.com/.../how-the-post-office-sells-your-new-address-with-anyone-...
Jul 8, 2013 - Whenever you fill out a change of address form with the United States Postal Service, the USPS adds your new details into a database of 160 million previous address changes over the past four years. The USPS has deals with data brokers to sell this data to anyone who pays, provided they have your old address.
Why would getting someone on Medicaid help a salesman for a Medicare Advantage plan?
Makes no sense to me.
.
Nah...much better to attach the "No Postage necessary" thingy on a brick and drop it in the mailbox.
After 10 years of their crap, I finally got them to stop sending me their junk mail.
Don't want no part of AARP.
Thanks for that info-——it’s the idea that AARP has been mailing to me for 35 years that I find astonishing and I never joined.
,
You don’t have to “join” to be targeted and sold. We are all slaves to marketing.
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