These are the wrinkles of a 19 year old. Apparently. (I was taking a selfie for the purposes of illustrating the point of the story below [ you’re welcome] and Adam photo-bombed me.)
All of my sisters are younger then me, the youngest in University still.
She is in the middle of exams right now, and had a big one yesterday evening, “Want to meet up with me after and celebrate?”.
We agreed.
She was going to be at the campus bar, so I fed Olive and left her with my mom, and we all drove to the University to meet her- Adam, Lizzie and I. Mawney (trthe exam taker) was there already and my other sister Hilary was meeting us later on.
We arrived at the university, parked and headed into the bar. The bouncer stopped us as we were strolling in the door.
“Hey guys, you got some ID?”
Because I am a lame old hermit, I had forgotten about this entire procedure. The bouncers with the crossed arms and black tee-shirts and the ID and the lines. Seriously, how long has it been since I’ve been asked for ID? Approximately forever. Truth be told, it was kind of flattering.
Adam reached for his wallet, Lizzie reached for her purse, and I reached for mine. And as they are handing over their ID’s, I realize that I don’t have any. ID I mean. I don’t have my drivers license, and although I have a wallet full of other cards with my name on it, none is the required government issues photo ID.
I start laughing, and say to the bouncer, “Oooooh. Okay. Here’s the thing-“
and dude starts to roll his eyes. How many times a night does he hear this? I get it, but I begin again, laughing harder this time, because really?
”- no no no. Okay yes, the thing is I don’t have my ID. But I’m old, seriously. I’m almost thirty! Look at me!” and I point to the alarming crop of wrinkles that have settled into my brow seemingly overnight, and I point to the smattering of gray hairs that I have noted with a strange mixture of fascination and sadness in the mirror late at night.
“I’m old,” I repeat, and I start pulling things out of my wallet to prove my geriatric status. “Look! I have a library card! Who has a library card?? And hey! I have a MEDIC ALERT bracelet! Like… medic alert. Come on.”
He is not impressed. I continue, “Oh and here’s my healthcare card, it’s government issued, but I mean, no, no picture. Oh! Oh! Look! This is my daughter’s healthcare card!”
He takes Olive’s healthcare card and studies it, then looks at me dubiously,
“Seriously! I have a baby!” I cry, and my sisters and Adam can’t stop laughing, and neither can I. I mean I can flatter myself all I want, and in the right light I don’t think I look half bad, but guys, no one in the world would ever think I was nineteen.
He hands Olive’s card back to me. “Sorry” he repeats, “I need government issued ID. For you.”
And I don’t have any. Why don’t I have any? (Cathy, you should probably stop reading here) I don’t have any because last week when Adam and I were meeting with a financial planner to deal with our investments and RRSP’s (SEE! That’s how old I am! I have RRSP’s!”) he mentioned that he had an old drivers license on file, and could I give him the updated number?
And then I stared blankly at him, “An old drivers license?”, I repeated, and then frantically began to rummage through my purse until- oh, oh my. My drivers license expired on my birthday. Three months earlier.
Ha! Hahahahaha! Oh wow.
So after our RRSP meeting we went straight to the Canadian equivalent of the DMV and got a new license (and not that this is at all relevant, but I was not prepared to have my photo taken for a card that I would have to carry around with me for the next five years. Not prepared at all. There was a hair situation happening, and a no-mascara-tiny-eyes situation, and then a whole lot of shiny t-zone situation happening too. It was pretty unfortunate. Almost as unfortunate as driving around with an expired license for three months.)
Anyway. So I didn’t have a drivers license, I just had the little piece of paper that said I HAD a drivers license, while I was waiting for the real license, the one with the terrible picture, to be mailed to me.
And believe me, I told the bouncer all of this, even adding “…and the reason I forgot to renew my license is because I had baby brain. From the BABY I have. Because I’m old.”
But this didn’t work. A) because the little piece of paper didn’t have my picture on it, and B) because having a baby isn’t enough to prove that you are old anymore because of all of those 16 year olds poppin’ em out all over the place. In fact, I think that mentioning Olive may have even worked against me in this case. Balls.
Other things we tried:
-Begging
– Pleading
– Adam tried showing him my facebook.
– Mawney pulled up my blog and tried telling him I was internet famous, which, oh my god. Never do this. Wow.
Needless to say, I did not get into the bar. The rest of the legitimately of-age individuals sat outside with me for a half hour or so while I drowned my sorrows in half a bag of skittles that Mawney gave me, and then since I was planning on going home early to get some writing done anyway, I headed out and left the rest of the crew to party.
I came home and Olive was sleeping. I went to the bathroom, and stared for a while at all of my forehead wrinkles and all of my grey hairs.
Then I met my eyes in the mirror and whispered to my reflection,
“Still got it.”
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