Case today: Getting a discounted cup
of joe and showing some of the variety of moral and “instrumental” judgments
and plans
I’ve joked with my mother (and
with you, on my other blog) about managing to get a discounted coffee from such
an esteemed establishment as McDonald’s because, on a given winter day, with my
winter attire and momentary, somewhat haggard appearance, I passingly look like
a senior citizen.
Before I took my mother to do
her food-shopping trip (once a week at a Shop-Rite supermarket she prefers)
today, I joked with her about perhaps getting the senior discount on coffee when
I went to a McDonald’s a short walk away from the Shop-Rite. Actually, I
dressed as I was apt to simply to be practical, and because it’s winter (and I
haven’t shaved for days; and I wasn’t “going to work” yet). And I really wasn’t
expressly trying to trigger some
hapless McD’s clerk into charging me (out of sympathy or whatever) only the
senior rate for coffee. But I knew it could possibly happen.
Again, so much is in the hat
Key to the way I look older (and
perhaps a little more hapless) than I am, in the winter, is a grey knit hat
that stands up high and makes me look like a garden gnome. It’s the sort of hat
no twenty-something would be caught dead in (except maybe on a ski slope). I
know from the almost-universal way that people—a range, including ones who know
me well enough—seem to “give me a look” when I appear on the scene in this hat,
as if I appear a bit goofy, that this hat has an efficient, reliable way of
making me look like a real winter dipshit.
Add greyed whiskers that look
rather like short bristles on a brush (for cleaning up your pet, or shoes), and the
more extensive grey in my mustache….
Also add, by the sheer
efficiency of nature and the winter day, a wrinkled, crow's-feet appearance about my eyes
and perhaps a shadowy look there, due to short sleep and maybe my feeling a bit
peaked (pronounced “pee-ked” [correction: the syllables have equal stress]), and we’re almost there. Instant 65-year-old. (Or
maybe 60? What is the minimum age for what McD’s considers “senior”?)
What else? You never know who
among fast-food wait staff is going to be triggered into thinking I’m older
than I am, but often it’s younger (20-something, maybe late-teens) people. (Not
always, but often. And it’s happened a couple times at a Dunkin Donuts, too.)
But today one thing that worked
was that the wait person was a Hispanic woman, age maybe 50, and I think maybe
she was generally a bit rough enough in assessing where we Anglos stood as to
apparent age. (No big mystery: the same thing can happen among us Anglos regarding our Latino
neighbors.) This, combined with hat and grey hair, was key to my securing the
senior discount. And of course I didn’t have to say anything to make it happen. [Added 2/12/15: If you're wondering whether the presence of my mother helped trigger the age assessment, my mother wasn't there; I was on a solo sortie while my mother was in the supermarket.]
Analysis of the limits of devious activity here
It seems that, whatever the
basis in particular cases, this assessment comes by sheer grace, or luck. It
doesn’t seem you can calculate that it will happen based on (whatever
combination of) goofy hat, unshaven face, short-sleep haggardness, etc. You only
need go out of the house—all innocent in general intention—looking like a bit
of a goofball, and maybe—when ordering some breakfast repast—encounter a McD’s
worker who’s never seen you before….
So, no efficient decision to deceive here. Instead, going out on the road
with the consciousness that you can possibly
receive a “tricked” assessment of you. Devious? Not really. (And what does the
discount cost McDonald’s? About 40 cents? The senior coffee in this case was
about 70 cents.)
But if you were short of money, and
were more apt to make the discount happen (and weren’t concerned about being
devious), how could you add a bit to the possible misjudging of your age? Maybe
humming a song “no young person would hum.” Sinatra, maybe. Maybe in a brief
set of comments, some old-time idiom (maybe from 1950s movies), if you could
think of it and not sound fake.
But in the hamming-up department,
I wouldn’t make a passing remark about having been in a war, when you haven’t.
So, if you’re considered 60 or 65, Vietnam might seem to be a good touchstone, but
be serious (if you’re my age)—don’t ham it up and say, about something you
allegedly saw outside, “I haven’t seen such craziness since Saigon. I was
almost ready to jump flat to the ground as if enemy helicopters were coming.”
I mean, a famous TV news
anchorman who developed his trademark tone of gravitas and senatorial bearing,
all suited for delivery of the wealth of national-audience news (grave and fun), recently took a career fall for
his previously suggesting he had received more risk from war-zone activity than
he really had. Your honorableness should still come into play, when all that’s
at stake is a discounted coffee. [Added 2/12/15: The unexpected senior discount happened again today, at a Dunkin Donuts over the state line in New York State, where it's happened before. No hat this time, but still with the grey whiskers that make my face look a little like a raccoon's rump.]
