This post is entirely for therealjae.

[rivka]

I stopped at the grocery store on my way home from the bus stop. We're having buffalo burgers for dinner, and I needed some buns to serve them on. I also picked up a sixpack of Clipper City (because what are burgers without beer), and a toothbrush, and a box of raspberry fruit-and-grain bars.

I waited in line at the checkout stand with my credit card in my hand. As she rang up my groceries, the cashier asked me, "Have I seen your ID before?"

I looked at her in total incomprehension. She tapped her finger against the sixpack of beer. Light dawned.

"Um. No. No, you haven't," I said, fishing out my driver's license. "Because I'm thirty."

I've been legally able to purchase alcohol for nine years! I have white hairs! I have a Ph.D.! I thought all of these things, but did not say them.

I also thought and did not say: Sheesh. Just when am I going to start looking like a grownup?

Comments

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Don't feel bad. A couple of years ago, I was carded in Alberta. Where they not only take drinking ages somewhat less seriously where they do in the U.S., but *the drinking age is 18*.

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh my God.

Thanks, I do feel better.

[puppytown.livejournal.com]

In the various beer-selling establishments I've worked in, the standard practice is to card anyone who looks younger than 30. So there!

[geekchick]

because what are burgers without beer, and a toothbrush, and a box of raspberry fruit-and-grain bars.

It took me a minute to parse that in what I assume is the correct manner. "Hmm. Yeah, burgers and beer. And I could see 'burgers and beer [and/or] a toothbrush', but burgers without raspberry fruit-and-grain bars are just fine."

I got carded the other night at a restaurant when I ordered wine. I find I appreciate having it happen a lot more now that I'm well on the other side of 30. ;) My favorite though was a few years ago when I got carded while ordering sake, and the waitress' response to seeing my license that said I was 30: "Wow, I had no idea you were so old!" *ahem* "Thanks. I think."

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Hee! Good point. I fixed the punctuation.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

The last time I was carded I was over 40. Granted, it was a dark-ish bar, and I was next in line after a long series of barely-legal cuties, but when the guy checking ID asked for mine and *then* looked at my face, he at least had the good manners not to say, "oh, never mind."

(-:

[redbird]

Sounds like she, or the store, recently got in trouble for not carding someone.

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

Dear Rivka -- problem schmoblem -- I visit the Liquor Commission maybe twice a year, and then only for guests -- but wouldn't you know that about five years ago I happened to be coming out of the store when the local TV station was shooting its stock footage... so every damn time the Provincial Liquor Commission makes the evening news, there I am, toddling out the entrance -- I am teased about it unmercifully at church...

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this is helpful or not, but if you ever come visit me, and if we go somewhere that sells alcohol, you *will* be carded.

When Blount County passed a law allowing alcohol to be sold within the county (even by the drink! *gasp*), the compromise was that every purchaser must be carded every time (I think that even means if you go out for dinner, you have to be carded for the second beer as well as for the first, but I could be wrong on that point).

However, individuals who are over 65 years of age are not required to show a picture ID, as long as the ID they have is government-issued.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I was carded last summer in Ohio. Maybe it was because I was with my sister and b-i-l, who are in their early 30s.

About this grown-up thing, I dunno. I think it sneaks up in chunks, so that now I look like a grownup when I go to a dance or a movie, but still look too young to be heard in meetings. Sigh. Not that that's any comfort.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Well, I was mistaken for a high school student at a wine tasting with my mother a month ago.

And sometimes, when I tell people I'm 31, they say "no way" and then start closely examining the skin around my eyes. That creeps me out....

[lisajulie.livejournal.com]

I got carded at the age of 39. I was buying a case of Sam Adams Cream Stout, and the store is one of the places where no one has been carded in the memory of mankind. I also got carded at 35 buying Guiness. Go figure.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

You'll look like a grownup about 3 years after I do? Someone thought I was 19 two years ago. (When I was 31.) Sheesh!

OTOH, I can see all the signs of age on my face. But if my mother's experience is any indication, I'll be carded well into my 40's. If it didn't also mean that I got treated like a child...

[lysana.livejournal.com]

I have had the mixed moment of seeing a clerk blink at my birthdate after he asked for my ID. I'm 36, but I guess I still look under 30 to some people. This is a switch; I was told I looked like I was in my 20's when I was 16.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Heh. I got carded at 37; the waitress was genuinely shocked. Then I let the dye job grow out, and it hasn't happened again.