Everyone holds stereotypes.

It doesn’t matter how good and fair you say you are, somewhere inside you is a stereotype or two that you refer to once in a while. They may be racial. They may not be gender-based. They may not regard anything that you ever see talked about in popular media or on talk radio.

When I was younger I stereotyped beef stroganoff. I had some bad run-ins with the stuff and became biased against it. I was well aware of it and had no desire to change. Beef stroganoff was nasty stuff … anything in the stroganoff family for that matter.

Then I got placed in a situation in which I had no choice but to endure another encounter with the most hated dish. Someone served it to me on my mission. You can’t say no. You have to eat it.

I ate it. I like it. My perception changed. The walls of my stereotype came down. There are bad batches of stroganoff … but that doesn’t make all stroganoff bad. I was a cured man.

I got a most curious letter in the mail the other day. You’ve seen letters like this before. “You’re pre-approved!” But this one was unlike any I had ever received before.

This was from the AARP.

For so long I had thought, “Those AARP groupies! There always excluding us 20-somethings! What’s their deal? Their nothing but no-good teamsters out too keep the younger man down!”

But now I know that’s not the case. They’re not trying to keep me down. They’re good people. They love me just as I am. They’ve extended their olive branch of peace to me and I know that they will accept me just as they would any person above the age of 50.

After all … I’m pre-approved.

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