My turn to post a rant.  I got the tax refunds back and decided to go shopping.  Went to Good Will.  I go to Good Will so very seldom I didn't know that on Wednesdays, they give seniors a 10% discount on top of any other discounts.  I also didn't know under their rules I'm a senior.  The nice check out lady looked at my ID and offered me the discount.  I refused.

I HATE senior discounts.  Many seniors have pensions, social security, investment and retirement savings and/or jobs.  Many DON'T need a senior discount.  But places that offer these discounts give them to all "seniors" regardless of ability to pay.  And most people who are "senior" are happy to take them.

When I was a young mother with two small children, my ex-husband was in the Marine Corps.  He was stationed at MCAS Yuma, AZ which at the time did not have a commissary.  They had a small convenience store suitable for beer and cigarettes.  If you needed to feed a family, you had to "go on the economy" and shop at the regular supermarkets like any other non-military family.  That year, congress had refused to give the military a pay raise.

So I'm standing in line with my children at one of the above mentioned supermarkets.  Yuma even in the early 1970s was a winter visitor destination.  This old guy behind me started going on about how he was glad for the senior discount at that store, he really liked the savings and it was too bad his home town in Washington didn't offer them as well.  I just couldn't understand what it was like to live on a fixed income.  I had never been further north than San Diego at that time.  I told him it would be great to be able to afford to travel twice a year - Washington to Arizona, Arizona to Washington - a three day trip each way - and get to see some of the US.  I couldn't afford to drive 1/2 day to visit my mother.  It would also have been great for my then husband to have gotten a raise that year - even a very small raise would have been appreciated.

Some seniors need the discount as they are trying to make it only on Social Security payments.  Fine.  But the rest of them - and myself - don't need them.  If a business must give away feel good discounts, let them give them to people who need them.  They could set up "people in need" cards and just swipe them at the register like any other card.  I'll just keep turning down the senior discounts until I'm eating cat food for dinner, thanks.

And Brian37, just for you - this isn't some PC crap.  This is about raising everyone's costs so you can give some old lady fart a discount when she doesn't need a discount.  I don't think it is fair to anyone who is younger than "senior", whatever that age may be.