The summer after my freshman year of college, I worked at a department store in the podunk mall in my home town, which reinforced my drive to earn my college degree so I could get a better job than a sales associate.  Like a housewife.  It wasn’t hard work per say, but it should have been a lot easier.  For example, there was no reason, in the twenty-first century, that we should have had to memorize all the sale prices and ring them up manually, when every other department store in the world had computerized registers.  Nor should we have had to do mark-downs by writing new prices on tags with pens because we didn’t have price guns.  Those issues had, thankfully, been resolved by December when I returned for a few weeks’ holiday work, but there was no technological answer to the problem of Senior Day.

The first Tuesday of every month, any shopper age 55 or over got a 10% discount on their purchases.  No big deal, right?  Just a simple matter of watching for the ladies with gray perms shopping in the Alfred Dunner section.

Except that those shoppers were typically 65 or over.  “Senior” does not necessarily equal “elderly.”  Those 55 year-olds can be tricky.  So can the 45 year-olds, for that matter.  I mean, the purpose of the senior discount is to drive up sales, not to drive it away with some hapless sales associate asking a 45 year-old if she qualifies for the senior discount because she looks like she might be 55.

After mortifying a few shoppers (not to mention myself) with such social missteps, I adopted a new strategy.  To each customer of indiscernible age, I’d ask,  “I’m not implying anything about your age, but I just want to make sure anyone who qualifies for our discount today gets it.  Are you 55 or over?”  Most often, if anyone was under 55, they’d say, “Oh, I wish I was 55 so I could get that discount!”  (Should have lied!  I’d have been nonethewiser!)

Still, I found the whole thing immensely stressful, as I’m sure current Belk employees do.  Lucky for them, some clever entrepreneur has arrived at the solution to all their age woes:

Frugally fashionable?  Or fashionably frugal?  Look out, Mom and Dad, Tim and Renee; you know what I’m getting you for your birthdays this year!

One does have to wonder:  where are the “thousands of seniors” this ad claims wear the Senior Discount Cap.  I’ve never seen anyone in one.  Have you?