Just ask me

I bought a movie today, Monty Python's
Life of Brian. It was on the 5.50 rack, it is nearly 30 years old (1979). Still the movie does have an R rating, so the register at the grocery store where I bought it automatically prompted the cashier: "Is customer over 17?"

When I buy wine or beer, which does not happen too often, but once in a while, the message comes up again, this time asking about being older than 21. IN either case, the cashier usually does what the woman behind the counter today did. She reached over with a huff and smacked the "yes" button as though it should be obvious even to the machine that I was well over 17.

In any age restricted purchase or admission – again not often, but there are some R movies I'll see at the theatre and I have a fondness for a good White Zinfandel – I am passed through unasked to prove that I am an adult.

By the time I was 16, I had already surpassed most people in height and weight both. I had a full bushy beard I started cultivating at 14, and I just looked older than 18, which was the legal drinking age at that time. When my then best friend discovered that most people mistook me for much older, we began the Buying of the Beer. Each and every time I walked to the counter and placed a 6, 12 or 24 pack of beer down and pulled out the wallet, I sweated and feared I was going to be carded. I never was.

These days, I sweat and fear that I WON'T be carded. Looking a lot older than my physical age was one time a goal, now it's … disturbing. There is a hassle to being carded, pulling out the driver's license, going through the rigmarole, but it would be nice if maybe it just wasn't quite so obvious that my teenage years are so far behind me even a cash register should be able to tell.

I don't qualify for the discount meals at Denny's yet, I've thought about going in there and ordering senior special just so someone would card me, but there is a two part issue with that: 1. I'm afraid that I wouldn't be carded there either and 2. Denny's food.

Maybe I should try it the other way around. I think the next time I go to see a movie, I'll claim I'm under 12 to get that children's discount. I can't imagine it would work, but imagine the ego-shot if I could pass it just once.

Of course, I'd have to try it at a G or PG movie.