What would Mister Magoo do?

The other night I stepped up to the box office of a movie theater on Hollywood Boulevard to buy a ticket.

After I held up a single finger, the woman on the other side of the glass looked at me and asked, "Senior or adult?"

I grabbed a pen, wrote "ADULT!" across the front page of a newspaper I was carrying, and then underlined it a few times.

I was stunned. No one had ever offered a senior discount to me before! At 51 years old, I'm a good decade away from being able to legitimately qualify for discounts available for senior citizens.

I stewed in my seat awhile, pondering what might have prompted the woman in the box office to think I was a senior citizen.

I don't wear Mister Magoo glasses. I wasn't toting a box of Depends. I have a full head of hair and it's not glued to my scalp.

As I waited for the movie to begin, I sent a text message to a friend about the slight at the box office window. He texted back: "Smack her."

Soon the lights went down, and I forgot about the insult.

A few days went by, and on Monday I went to a friend's Memorial Day barbecue. On Monday evening, I started to get emails telling me that people at the barbecue were posting photos from the party on Facebook and tagging me in them.

I opened one of the photos and thought, "Say, who is that geezer? Was he at the party? Sure don't remember seeing him."

Then I recognized the Paul Frank kerchief around the geezer's neck and realized that the geezer was ME!

Throughout the evening, I got alerts from Facebook that I had been tagged in more photos from the party. I looked old in every one of 'em!

Sometime over the past six months or so, I've been catapulted into the middle of the 21st Century. This may be a result of the effects of cancer; it could be AIDS finally catching up with me; it may be the fact that the situation with my mouth prevents me from wearing my dentures, giving me that tell-tale "Grampa forgot to put his choppers in" look.

Whatever it is, I might as well just accept it.

And start milking dem senior discount opportunities.