"President Obama can’t wait for AARP senior discounts"

[Bluebear]

With debt-ceiling deadlines filling his head, President Obama might be having a tough time keeping track of his personal milestones.

At a Friday press conference, while answering a reporter’s question about whether he would change the retirement age, Obama said, “I’m going to be turning 50 in a week. So I’m starting to think a little bit more about Medicare eligibility. Yes, I’m going to get my AARP card soon — and the discounts.”

Just one problem — the president’s birthday isn’t a week away. He won’t be blowing out the candles until Aug. 4, more than two weeks from now.

So it seems President Obama will have to wait a little longer for those perks he mentioned, which, according to the AARP website, include: 10 percent off at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., a 20 percent savings on digital hearing aids (in case political shouting matches take their toll) and nearly 50 percent off popcorn and a soda at Regal movie theaters.

http://thehill.com/capital-living/in-the-know/172119-president-obama-cant-wait-for-senior-discounts-

[Art_from_Ark]

1. So that's what I've been missing by not joining AARP?

Sign me up today!

[Mnemosyne]

4. If you don't sign, they will stalk you.

:)

[Liberal Veteran]

2. Really?

I'm glad the hill is staying on top of the pressing issues.

[DJ13]

3. "This commercial message brought to you by...."

[Urban Prairie]

5. 50 years ago, AARP might have included

A few dozen S&H Green Stamps and a new book to paste them in with a valid registered membership...:)

[Art_from_Ark]

6. I remember my parents getting a rocking chair

with S&H Green Stamps, back in 1962. A few years later, we had filled in a few more books and went to the redemption center to trade them for an oven toaster and a newfangled FM radio.

[Urban Prairie]

8. My brother and I, along with a couple of friends from our block

found a grocery-bag full of used and unused trading stamps and booklets to paste them into, in a small field nearby our house, one summer day as young children in the mid-60s. We then went door to door in the surrounding neighborhood selling them, and actually made a decent amount of cash, that is, until we inadvertently knocked on the door of what we didn't know then, was an off-duty cop's house. His wife answered, and she and her husband invited us in for some milk and cookies. It was too good to be true until a little bit later when I happened to look out of their picture window, while sitting on their couch, and I noticed a police car drive up and park in front of their house, and then I knew that our "gig" was up.... :-(

[Art_from_Ark]

10. Didn't one book have a cash value of $3 or so?

I can imagine you could have gotten a pretty nice bunch of cash-- the proceeds from even one book could have bought quite a few candy bars and sodas back then, and maybe a matinee or two.

At any rate, if you found them, wouldn't they be yours? Or could you have at least gotten to claim them if no one else did? I'm interested in hearing more about how this played out.

[Urban Prairie]

11. Obviously it was sooo long ago that I can't remember exactly what the off-duty cop

said to us about why we couldn't sell them, other than perhaps our ages, my younger brother was 5 and I was 7, the oldest of our two friends, who were also brothers, was 9. They kept what was left of our stash of trading stamps and booklets, and the two on-duty cops walked us into their car, and then proceeded to take us back to our home(s), several blocks away. Fortunately for my brother and I, the cops stopped first at our friends' house, and unfortunately for the both of them, both of their parents were working in the front yard, and unhappily watched as the police car with all of us in it drove up. The cops asked my brother and I if we lived there as well, and we of course said "yes"...heh!! So our parents never found out about our involvement with the police that day for many, many years, until we told them about it.

[Art_from_Ark]

12. Sounds to me like the cops kept the rest of the stamps for themselves

I can't imagine anyone in my neighborhood calling the cops on me for doing something like that back then.
If they were suspicious, they probably would have just phoned my parents.

[Urban Prairie]

13. Well, we did get to keep the money that we had already made and had split amongst each other

and I have a lifelong memory of that unusual day during my youth, in an area in the city of Detroit that has now become a cesspool of crime and thousands of removed/abandoned/burned out homes, although ours was brick and is still being occupied. Most of the homes in my old neighborhood that were constructed of wood are long gone now, with an empty lot in their places...very sad to see, in person or online, as it used to be a vibrantly alive area of the city, and was a great place to grow up in. I wouldn't trade even a week of living there, for an entire year of living in the sterile, treeless suburbs with cookie-cutter ranch-style homes surrounding it back then. Almost every day was an adventure, and I had a lot of "fun" times.

[Art_from_Ark]

15. It's really sad to hear what's become of your neighborhood

My former neighborhood from the '60s still looks pretty much the way it did back then, except that someone took out all the trees in my old yard (there were a dozen or so when I lived there), and the local elementary school, which was just two blocks away, has been razed for who knows what. The loss of the elementary school has probably resulted in lower property values around there.

[Urban Prairie]

16. So you are living in Japan now, but your SN includes "Ark", which I take means that you are from

Arkansas? If so, (or not), what city or town did you grow up in?

[Art_from_Ark]

20. I'm from the hometown of Wal-Mart

Just about everyone I know from there has either worked at Wal-Mart, or has a family member who has worked at Wal-Mart.

[indurancevile]

18. The cops kept the green stamps? Hmmmm.

[madrchsod]

7. he really thinks that`s funny? really ?

my god this guy is really clueless.....

[BeFree]

9. He is actually making fun of poor folks?

He knows who buttered his bread, and it ain't poor fucks like us.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

19. You people are truly unhinged.

Even corny jokes set off your fake-outrage meter.

[Bluebear]

14. Tone. Deaf.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

17. Clearly, that's code for "I want to kill old people."

Isn't that what your decoder ring says?

[Withywindle]

21. I get AARP mailings all the time

Some of them, as far as I can tell, with cards involved. (I never open them, I just take them to the shredder at work.)




I only just now turned 42. And I've been getting them for years. Their junk mail/spam divisions are not very selective.

[Missy Vixen]

22. The card arrived before the momentous birthday did

I'm surprised whomever it is that runs AARP did not show up at the White House to present the President with his. Maybe that's next week.

I haven't activated said card. I'm still telling people I'm 30.

:woohoo: