Fatter and Older

I've always looked young for my age. Even in kindergarten everyone thought I was an infant. When I turned 21, I was not surprised to be asked for my ID often. I've never understood getting upset about that, especially not when there are so many other things in this world worth being upset about.

However, I was annoyed a couple of times when, after showing my id, I was called a LIAR. To my face. In an unpleasant way. Once at an REM concert in the mid 90's, a security guard asked to see my id, convinced I was not old enough to be drinking the beer I had in hand. I proudly produced my license, she looked at it and said with a smirk, "This ain't you lady, this is your fatter, older sister."

Uhm, no. That's just fat, plain old me. I mean, okay it was a bad picture. I'm not exactly photogenic, especially not at the DMV, but Holy God what a WITCH.

The next time I was called a liar was at the grocery store. I was at the time 25 and the new mother of a baby girl, who was with me at the time. I'd run into the market to pick up fixings for a little gathering at our house that evening. Pork tenderloin, brie, crackers, beer, wine...even a package of diapers for the baby.

It seems a grocery store clerk could use the context clues to decide that perhaps this was not some elaborate scam to get all my friends wasted. "Okay, I'll borrow this baby, go to the store buy things like I'm having a classy party and I'll throw in a pack of diapers to make it all look authentic. Then I'll ditch the baby and the food and we'll all get wasted at the park!"

Great plan.

She asked for my id, I showed her. "This isn't you. I won't sell this to you."

Oh this just gets me all steamed all over again. So she refuses to sell me ANYTHING and I'm standing there all blushing and livid and I want to reach across the conveyer belt and slap the pious 'I-Am-Teaching-You-A-Lesson-You-Elaborately-Scheming-Teenager' lady in a very white trash kind of way that would have scarred my baby for life.

All I can say is 'You have got to be kidding me.' and she starts ignoring me....which Pants will tell you is the absolute wrong thing to do to me when I'm upset.

I said, very loudly, 'Oh, no, you're wrong you are going to sell me my groceries and my wine and my beer and I'm going to go put these things in my car and I'm going to come back through your line with even more beer and wine for you to sell me.'

And she said, leaning over the counter at me, 'Look here, missy....I am not selling you any liquor. Ever. So move along, now.'

I'm not exactly a calm person. I'm not patient. I'm not particularly tolerant, especially in the face of stupidity and rudeness. My in laws will tell you that, repeatedly. So it should come as no surprise that it took every last bit of my strength to remain composed in the line at the market. With a line of people standing around waiting for this stand off to end, badly.

I pulled out the consumer's trump card, 'Get me the manager.'

She. Said. "No"

At this point it was becoming a scene. I turned to the cashier at the next lane and said, "I need the manager, immediately"

I'll spare you even more of the titillating details, but the manager asked me what he could do for me. This cashier, interrupted with, "This little girl wants to buy liquor for her little friends."

And then I won because the manager told her he would take over her lane, she was off duty now.

I handed him my id and he rang up my order and apologized for Rosa, because, 'She's a little extreme sometimes.'

"Extreme isn't the word I would have chosen. I have never in my entire life been so repeatedly and without cause insulted by one woman in the space of 10 minutes."

Which wasn't really true, since my in laws were still a part of my life, but still it was mostly true.

And then I left the store, and gave that baby I'd picked up in the parking lot back to it's mother with the diapers and pork tenderloin and I sold that wine and beer to a car full of teenagers waiting in front of the store. Just to piss Rosa off.

Odd how my story about the last 4 days became a story about a day 5 years ago.

Anyway, I was thinking about Rosa because in the last 4 days I've been buying wine or beer twice and both times I've been asked for ID. Which is more unusual now that I'm 30 and haggard. It's like my face grew into my life and I no longer look like a young deceitful bitch, instead I look like an old crabby woman stretched too thin, even though her life is actually pretty easy.

But over the last 4 days I appear to have dropped the Crabby Woman look and taken back the Deceitful Bitch look. The results haven't been as insulting as the Fatter Older Sister experience or as rage producing as Rosa's Vicious Assault...but still.

I love giving my ID and having the cashier say, "You have got to be kidding me." and then enduring her doubtful look as she reluctantly hands me my purchases.

Comments

[The Sarcastic Journalist]

maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, but I'd like to go and kick Rosa's ass this very minute. I've never had anything THAT extreme, but I get the "what grade are you in?" question a lot. I swear most people probably think I"m a knocked up 14-year-old. I've had people yell that I'm not old enough to drive...been refused from rated R movies...you name it.

My personal favorite is when I go to interview people for the newspaper. They're like "So you're doing this for your college class?"

My answer: No, I'm a real, live grown-up who works at a real, live paper and I really get paid and really pay taxes. Now shut the fuck up and do this interview.

[Katie]

I love this story. Good for you for standing up for yourself. I too, look much younger than I am. People at work are constantly asking me if I work part time while also taking classes, or just blatantly, "so what are you studying at school?" I have to break it to them that in fact, I graduated from college seven years ago.

[erika]

For the most part, I think it's a compliment that people think I look like a kid. People still ask me what college I go to. I don't. I'm 32, I graduated in '94.

A few years back, I went to the movies with my boyfriend (who I was older than). The cashier said, "one adult and one child?" That was pushing it. I don't look 12!

I am going to remember your sass in case some Rosa gives me a hard time!

[Marissa]

Whoa, what a bitch! That happened to my husband, when we were questioned by a cop for being in a park at sunset. He looked at his birtdate, then turned to my husband and said, "You look a little young to be 26..." My husband said, "What are you implying, officer?" which is pretty scandalous for him, being an Eagle Scout. The officer said, "Oh nothing, just that you look younger than you are." I could eat the tension! Nothing happened, just a warning to leave the park at sunset (lame).

When people pull that kind of shit with you, you've got to point out their ignorance. I believe it's helpful to say to people, when they tell you "you've got to be kidding me!" or whatever, "Oh - you poor thing! You can't do math, can you? You see, it says 1971, which means I'm 35. You just have to subtract 1971 from 2004, see? Now, let me know if you need any help with my credit cards, or even tips on customer service skills. BIOTCH!"

[kalisah]

heh heh heh. Wait til you're 38 and still being carded...

I was like you - always looked young, never really minded being asked. I figured the only people that get pissed about it are people that are underage, right?

I would joke, "I'm sure I'll appreciate this when I'm 40!"

Come to find out, you appreciate it before that. You appreciate it right when you're getting ready to attend your 20-year HS reunion.

[Mrs. Kennedy]

Good lord, I bought some wine yesterday and the cashier eyeballed me and said, "You old enough to buy this?" I have crow's feet and veiny hands and I'M FORTY -- which was roughly his I.Q., I believe.

[Michelle]

Oh, Lord, I get this all the time! Buying alcohol one time I was carded and I SWEAR the little Asian woman with the fingerless gloves stood there for TEN minutes trying to peel my ID apart, as if I had made it myself at home with my computer and a handy laminator. And one time buying cigarettes at the local convenience store, I was asked to produce THREE photo id's. I was 25 at the time. And yes, I HAD 3 id's (military, college and lisence), and yet the woman was still not going to sell them to me. I got carded at 7-11 for a lighter a few years ago. And then yesterday...didn't get carded at the liquor store for the $50 worth of alcohol I was buying (and my 58 year old dad was with me!), but got carded next door for a pack of cigarettes.

Last week I met my district manager for the first time. Which is a big deal since I just got promoted to a supervisor position. And he looked at me very skeptically, as if to say "Is this chick old enough to run this department?" and I just wanted to scream "I'm 28 years old, you tool! I know I look about 18, but I am TWENTY EIGHT!!!!" Seriously, when I started working there I had all the 19 year old boys asking me out on dates.

When i registered my daughter for kindergarten 2 years ago, the woman told me "her mother has to register her." I said "I AM her mother." Her response? "Are you SURE?" To which I replied "Well, I had her when I was 12."

Ignorant people. It's one thing to get carded, quite another for them to call you a liar to your face.

Michelle

[jilbur]

Really, I'd rather have someone say, 'This is your fatter, older sister,' than, 'This is your thinner, younger sister.'

--Obnoxious Little Miss Glass Half Full

[Lil' Sis]

The Curse of the Williams Girls! I am consistently asked at my office if maybe I shouldn't be in class at my high school (I like to respond, "no, I dropped out 2 years ago when I was 12."), and I still keep thinking how great it would be to be the "older chick" who goes to prom with the high school boy, but for the love of god, they all look older than me. My ten year reunion is next summer. Oy. I tend to go to the same bars & liquor stores because I hate the scrutinization of my id, but this backfires if anyone is with me, because I look like the single most alcoholic girl in a town with a bar on every corner & 4 inbetween. Every bartender & clerk knows my name, or at least calls me "honey" & asks how I've been. Pick your evil. But, hey! Maybe all the booze, cigarettes & caffiene will prematurely age me. There's always hope.
-miao.