I Ensure you, Alex Trebek

I’m often reminded, as if I needed to be, that I’m getting old. Ten years ago people said I was getting older, but now they say I’m getting old. And so I am. I admit it. It’s hard to imagine myself a senior citizen or worse “a golden ager”. I can remember listening the Beatles singing “When I’m sixty-four”. I can remember listening to Simon & Garfunkel singing “How terribly strange to be seventy”. Yikes! I’m almost there. Terribly strange old, that’s for sure.

And you can can your “I like being old”. You don’t like being old, it just beats the alternative. Be honest. Getting old isn’t easy. You have to be tough and willing to keep a stiff upper lip when you get prodded and poked by all kinds of specialists trying to find out what’s wrong with you. I don’t need to pay a cardiologist, a dermatologist, a urologist, a nephrologist,
an endoctrinologist, or a whatever-ologist,  to tell me what’s wrong with me. I’M OLD and I know it!

Getting old is tough enough without everyone thinking that everyone old is stupid.  There are less stupid people in their sixties, seventies and eighties (and nineties) than there are in twenties and thirties. Let’s face it, twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings are driven by hormones, us older folks not so much.

But what I really hate is companies that prey on seniors thinking their foolish, old, tottering ignoramuses with money. I’m going to give you some examples of what I mean by companies preying on seniors – and I’m not even going to mention the IRS and computer scams that have ripped off older folks for zillions of dollars.

Here are some legit companies (I think) preying on older folks (and this will no doubt get me sued):

1. Colonial Penn Life Insurance – They hire Alex Trebek as their spokesperson because he’s been the host of  Jeopardy for a hundred years. He seems to be smart, but when you think about, he knows the questions because he has the questions and answers. Hey! Nothing against Jeopardy. I like it. But I have a problem with people trying to sell senior citizens life insurance by the unit. How many dollars in in a unit. A unit costs me 30 cents a day. And it infuriates me when someone says it will help pay my final expenses. I’m saving my family lots of money by being incinerated instead of carted off in a box. I don’t need no stinkin’ units of life insurance, Alex. I need DOLLARS of life insurance.So a little fact-finding trip yielded this information. Here’s what Colonial Penn says about a “Unit of Coverage”:
   “A unit of coverage corresponds to the life insurance benefit amount you can purchase, and it depends on age, gender and state. Please visit the Guaranteed Acceptance Life quote page to see benefit amounts and premiums available to you for up to 8 units of coverage.”So, I figured this on being 70 which I not – at least not yet. So if you’re a 70-year-old male, to get enough insurance to have a funeral, it would cost you about $80 a month. Yikes. Think of all the cheap bourbon you could buy for $80 a month.
   
   And you have to wait 2 full years before you drop off before you can get the “full” benefit. So you pay $80 a month for two years – then you can drop dead and you can take advantage of Colonial Penn for about $4000. However if you live 10 more years, Colonial Penn is taking you for $4000. It’s like them betting you’ll die in 2 years and you’re betting you won’t. Either way – you lose.
2.  Ensure – Ensure must think older people are stupid. Ever seen the Ensure commercials on TV? If you haven’t you can watch them YouTube – in case you not an old American.  Anyway, let’s look at Ensure:This is Walmart’s price. Ensure costs 76 cents per ounce. An 8-oz bottle of Ensure costs you about $6.00. And what do get for $6?Mike Adams, editor of NaturalNews.com says this about Ensure:

   “… the top two ingredients in Ensure are almost identical to the top two ingredients in soft drinks! … the top four ingredients (are): water, sugar, corn syrup and maltodextrin. That’s basically three sweeteners and water. So if you were trying to be funny, you could call this product ‘sugar-sugar-sugar-water,’ because that is primarily what it’s made of, according to the ingredients label… So essentially, what you have here with Ensure, is a predominantly sugar-water product that has been fortified with a few vitamins and minerals…”

   You can buy a bottle of multivitamins with minerals for about $6. You can buy a gallon of milk for about $3.  You can but a can of chocolate drink mix powder or liquid for about $4.  For $13 you can make 16 servings of chocolate milk and take a once-a-day multi-vitamin for roughly the same amount of calories and get more nutrition for less than $1 a serving – and you will have enough chocolate & vitamins left to make another 3 or so gallons. Just buy the milk.  So you’re talking pennies per serving with less sugar, and more vitamins and minerals. (For our friends in metric countries – an ounce equals about 29 ml. and a gallon equals about 3.78 liters._

   So what exactly is Ensure selling to you for 76 cents an ounce? Here’s the ingredients in Ensure Original Chocolate Shake:

   Water, Corn Maltodextrin, Sugar, Milk Protein Concentrate, Canola Oil, Soy Protein Isolate, Cocoa Powder (Processed with Alkali), Corn Oil. Less than 0.5% of: Nonfat Milk, Magnesium Phosphate, Potassium Citrate, Cellulose Gel, Natural & Artificial Flavor, Calcium Carbonate, Salt, Calcium Phosphate, Sodium Citrate, Choline Chloride, Ascorbic Acid, Potassium Chloride, Cellulose Gum, Monoglycerides, Soy Lecithin, Carrageenan, Potassium Hydroxide, Turmeric, Liquid Sucralose, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Acesulfame Potassium, dl-Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate, Niacinamide, Calcium Pantothenate, Copper Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Chromium Chloride, Red 3, Thiamine Chloride Hydrochloride, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Vitamin A Palmitate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Biotin, Sodium Selenate, Potassium Iodide, Sodium Molybdate, Phylloquinone, Vitamin B12, and Vitamin D3.

   I’d list the vitamins and minerals but it’s a long list. But basically Ensure provides about 25% of the RDA of most vitamins and minerals. An average daily multi-vitamin provides about 100% of most vitamins and minerals.

   Just because we’re old doesn’t mean we’re stupid…I ensure you, Alex Trebek.