Ageism, the Widow and Robin Williams

 

This week I got the second annual ‘shine and buff’ on my car as part of the “free” package the dealership gives you when you buy a new car. I say “free” but you gotta know the cost of that five year program is built into the initial cost of the vehicle. I tried to get them to take if off the car price, but they wouldn’t do it. So I dutifully got my annual shine and buff, otherwise I’d feel like I was throwing money away. The Malibu looked great when they got done…everywhere but on one wheel. I called it a hub cap but evidently cars don’t have hub caps anymore. It’s a whole tire mount and costs a royal fortune to replace. It was gouged deeply the entire way around the hub cap that isn’t a hub cap. On the way home I remembered hearing a terrible grinding metal sound when I went to a car wash recently, but as I was inspecting the car at the detail shop, I thought they had done the gouging. I was upset. They were upset. My word against theirs and I was out numbered. And in hindsight I was apparently on the worry side of the truth.

When I left the detail shop I drove straight to the dealership where they have a body shop. No matter how the wheel mount got damaged, there was no point in putting off getting a new hub cap that isn’t a hub cap. (Out of sight, out of mind.) And that’s where I discovered I can be prejudice against elderly people working in service departments. The guy was my age---maybe older---and working alone, trying to do ten things at one time, writing himself notes, having trouble file papers, typed with two fingers and to top it off, he sounded like Mr. Magoo. He was so slow and foggy acting I was afraid I'd have to do CPR at some point. I was there an entire hour but eventually he got a price on a new wheel mount---$495 new plus labor or $250 installed for a reconditioned model. I went for door number two and vowed not to go back to the same car wash where I think the damage occurred. You have to make a shape turn before getting your tires lined up in the track that takes you through the car wash and that’s not easy to do. The day I heard the grinding sounds my back tire was on top of the track before it dropped down in it.

The next day I found out I’m prejudice against people who seem to be too young to be doing certain jobs. I had my first ever appointment with an investment broker. I swear I have slips older than the kid who sat across from me in his expensive suit, in a building with polished marble floors and frosted glass walls. His teeth were so white and perfect I couldn’t quit looking at them. Saturday Night Live once did a skit where they used a black light in the dark and all that showed up were sets of teeth talking to one another and gloved hands gesturing. That’s what his teeth reminded me of. He’d obviously put a ton of money into dental work, probably a graduation gift for completing his degree. He told me he majored in the psychology of investors which I’m sure impresses young ladies during Happy Hour but happy hour for me is an afternoon nap.

Anyway, I went in there wanting to open up a brokerage account to dump the required disbursements that the government makes you take out of your 401K when you reach a certain age and he, of course, wanted me to roll over the entire 401K into a brokerage account instead. Makes sense on paper to do that and it's what most people do, he said, but I wasn’t going to take Mr. Bright Smile’s advice without doing my own research because once you roll over a 401K like that, you can’t undo it. At one point in his "pitch" he stood in front of a white board with his colored markers, drawing pie charts and graphs until my head was spinning but in the end we did it my way. My 401K is with the same investment company. I can still go to one website to see my old and new account and I am comfortable with that. At the end he said, they are so geared to try to simplify a client’s finances that he wasn’t listening to me. I wondered if his psychology of investors class forgot to cover old ladies who get bull-headed.

And last but not least, I am heartbroken over Robin Williams' death. It’s so hard to accept that someone who brought so much joy to so many people couldn’t find a way to keep some of that joy for himself. Over the years he was open about his struggles with depression and with drug and alcohol abuse, which all goes to prove that money and fame can’t save a person from mental illness or the demons that come with addiction. From all accounts, he was a caring individual in his personal life, a good friend, and a genuinely nice and compassion human being. His work with Relief Comic, the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, the Live Strong Foundation, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is proof of the latter. The many testimonials on TV and social media the past few days are proof of the former.

I have loved Robin since his Mork and Mindy days, so did my husband. Five of Robin’s movies are in my top twenty all-time favorite films: The Dead Poet Society, Good Morning Vietnam, What Dreams May Come, The Bird Cage, and Good Will Hunting. He shared his enormous talent with the world and he will always be remembered for being a gifted comedian and talented actor. I hope he finds the kind of heaven his character in Dreams May Come found. (See it the video below. It's my favorite after-death scene from any movie.) ©

P.S. I was the recipient of a random act of kindness this week. A woman in the car in front of me at Starbucks paid for my drink. When I got up to the window they handed me the paid receipt and said she does it quite often when she comes through. It sure put a smile on my face!