When am I gonna look like a grown-up? I just want to pass for eighteen. Since I am twenty-five, I don't feel like I am asking all that much.
The adorable little (four year old) boy I got to hang out with last weekend thought, insisted, that Steady was my father. I'm vaguely older than Steady, for the record. I'm actually the same age as that child's mother.
"mary ann," I hear you preparing to type in the comments, "he's four. The five year old you used to babysit thought your mother was your sister and you must have another mother inside the house, because moms don't play at catching insects in the yard with the neighbor children... and she was at least forty at the time. He's a small child, he has no idea about ages or even generations."
In the last year, since I've lived in Arizona, I have actually had a solicitor knock on my door and then ask me if my parents were home. It's happened plenty of times before that as well. It wasn't a fluke. I haven't lived with my mother even a little bit for five years. I'm a manager at an office. Are my parents home? I don't know; they're three time zones away.
This is being brought to you by the shit I took today when I was buying cigarettes.
"May I have a hard pack of Camel Lights?" stares at me hard"Camel Lights?" "In a box, yes, please." "ID?" [hands over Arizona Driver's License, debit card in hand.] "This is your sister?" tries to sound good natured"It's me I promise." "You have something else to show?" "What?" "You were born in 1980?" "On March 25th, yes." "You do not look that old." "I know. I get that a lot."
Now, I'm not asking that I not get carded. I'm willing to accept that I need to show some ID. I don't care if you need to walk over to the machine and run my license through to show it's valid, even if you don't run my boyfriend's even though his is nine years old and looks like someone poured a bottle of acid on it, and mine was issued four months ago...
I am simply asking that I not get interrogated after showing valid identification. I'd really prefer if these people didn't even feel compelled to look at it, look quizzically at me, look back at it and then shrug like "the cameras saw me card her. It's a valid license. I played my part."
I just got up and put back on the blouse I wore to work, right now at midnight, so you all could see approximately what I looked like five hours ago when this happened... It's a bit grainy, my bathroom mirror is apparently filthy and I look like my hair is currently experimenting in existing in multiple zip codes, but in spite of all of that, can we all agree that I look at least eighteen years old? Yes, like a grainy eighteen year old country singer in a filthy mirror, but at least eighteen?
