Wally says growing old is mandatory, but accepting it is optional

“It’s almost time for Medicare,” proclaimed a pamphlet that I recently received in the mail.

“The word is out, you are turning 65,” proclaimed another letter.

“Wow, are you ever over the hill,” said another.

OK, that last one isn’t real. But with the flood of letters I have been getting lately bugging me about aging, it sometimes seems like that’s the message.

“As you may have noticed, you have started getting information (about Medicare),” a letter informed me, adding that stuff probably would keep coming. A flood of stuff in fact. “As the stacks grow, so does your confusion,” it continued.

Well, actually, no, it doesn’t. Confusion would require me to be paying attention. My indifference, on the other hand, can’t grow but it remains the same.

An online site about Medicare promised me that optimal times for me to sign up is three months before I turn 65. That time period would start in October. It’s July.

I am a procrastinator. Anything sent to me now is going to get the same attention as my magazine subscriptions that are due in January. But for several months now I have been getting renewal notices, too.

I guess it is better than the conservation organization that sent a notice the other day asking for money and adding on the envelope, “Second Notice.” Not only do they demand I give them money, they insist I be quick about it.

There is a place for such things. It is the paper recycling basket in the cabinet. To paraphrase the famous wine commercial with Orson Welles, I will open no subscription offer before its time. Nor will I worry about Medicare until its time. Except for this column, of course.

Medicare qualification is one of those age milestones, but not one that Baby Boomers used to have to worry about. There was 16 to get your license, 18 to register for the draft, 21 to drink alcohol legally and some age in the 20s when car insurance became cheaper. No other birthday matters that much, except for Social Security.

I know I have only a limited time to sign up for Medicare. My wife has already been through this. It was torture then and I am sure it will be torture in January of next year when I officially qualify.

I know Medicare has parts A, B, C, along with supplemental, incremental, incidental, accidental, instrumental, coincidental and just plain mental insurance possibilities as well.

This whole getting older thing is just as surreal. I was in a supermarket getting my groceries from a basket while a nice little old lady waited to take my cart. We got into a discussion about how hard it is to lift watermelons out of the cart.

This prompted me to have to pick up my melon without the usual groans and grimaces from the effort to prove I wasn’t at that advanced age yet. No matter how hard I try to pretend, my face tells the getting older tale.

And anyway, there is no ignoring reality when apparently everyone out there who sells anything at all to older people has my birthday and will continue to remind me of reality.

Here’s to senior discounts.

This story was originally published July 23, 2016 at 7:36 AM with the headline "Wally says growing old is mandatory, but accepting it is optional."