Mississauga City Councillor Carolyn Parrish was positioned to win the hearts and votes of thousands of Mississauga seniors and Boomers who are soon-to-be-seniors this past week by introducing a one dollar transit fare for seniors. But the motion was held over to a later date. I’m surprised our ninety-four-year-old ex-Mayor Hurricane Hazel didn’t come up with that one but she would probably have been attacked by her critics for conflict of interest.

Imagine life for Mississauga Boomers if this deal goes through. There’s a bus stop at the end of my street that goes direct to Sherway Gardens. When I’m in my eighties and can no longer pass my drivers’ test, I’ll still be able to get my retail fix and have plenty of coin left over for a Timmie’s steeped tea in the food court. And the liquor store is right across the road from the mall so I’ll be able to load up on wine all in one trip.

Compare the estimated cost of owning and operating a car (based on CAA calculations) with taking a return trip on MiWAY (Mississauga Transit) every single day of the week.

 That leaves me with enough cash leftover to spend on any number of fun old lady things, such as:

• Pay rent/mortgage/operating costs on my condo
• Buy real meat instead of cat food for protein in my diet
• Treat my gal pals to a comp’d meal during our free trip to the casino
• New orthotics for my biker boots
• Tickets to Paul McCartney’s concert tour celebrating his 100th birthday
• Indulge in Mary Macleod’s melt-in-your-mouth ridiculously expensive chocolate chunk or pecan shortbreads more than once a year
• Those nifty incontinence pads specially designed for thongs.
• Dining out when it’s not even the “early bird special”
• Wine with a cork instead of in a box
• Medicinal weed for my arthritis

The possibilities are mind-blowing. And combine that with all the hundreds of dollars I’m saving every year by using my Mississauga library card to download books instead of purchasing them, I’m practically rolling in dough. Which means I could also afford real dough like maple donuts with my Timmie’s steeped tea. In fact I could even buy a round of tea for all my Boomer Broad pals. Does life get any better?

One dollar bus rides are just the beginning. If we push a bit, we could probably get a card from the Mayor on our birthday thanking us for all those years of paying taxes and encouraging us to live longer to keep paying taxes. We’ll probably all still have part-time jobs or hopefully some incoming-bearing investments until we die so we’ll never get any relief from the tax man. Just call it government’s way of saying “thank you”. All aboard!