Huge Mistake

On your 16^th birthday you are finally able to take your car, pick up your best friend, and go drive. It doesn’t matter where you’re going, but you’re FREE, finally! On your 18^th birthday you once again go pick up your best friend, drive to the store and purposely buy something that will force the cashier to ask you for your ID. Remember that feeling that you got when you had to actually show your ID to buy something…you were an adult for the first time! You felt like you were “getting away with something” even though you were legal, you still weren’t used to the feeling of being an adult. And, just when being an adult starts to feel normal, you’re 21, and for a while you’re still loving it when the bartender asks you for your ID. That novelty wears off after a while and it starts to get annoying when you are carded, you’re 23, you look 23, why are they asking to check your ID? Then for a couple of years it’s awesome when you can get by without having to show your ID because you finally appear to be older than 21.

Well, now I want to “appear” 21 again! I had to run to the grocery store this weekend to grab a couple of things for the hot dog cookout that we were having for the kiddos. Adam wanted some beer, so like a good wife I added a case of Bud Light to my cart, and after double checking my list I was ready to check out.  I picked the shortest line which also happened to have a teenager as the cashier. I loaded all of my groceries on to the belt, paid, went home. When I arrived home I found that there was an item in the bag that wasn’t mine, some solo cups, so I immediately scanned the receipt line by line making sure that I hadn’t paid for this item that had accidently been put into my bag by the cashier. Luckily, I hadn’t (I consider this a store bonus!), but I noticed something really unusual on the receipt. CUSTOMER OVER 40, NO ID CHECK REQUIRED. 

            What the hell was this? I saved the receipt, made my husband read it line by line and forced him to stare at it until he noticed the HUGE MISTAKE that the idiot cashier had made. I made him tell me that I didn’t look 40, or 30, and barely looked 25. (Sometimes I can get him to say what I need to hear if I coach him a little!) I showed the mistake, that’s what we’ll call it, to everyone that came to the house that day, including my brother and sister-in-law, an old friend of mine (using the term old loosely), and my father-in-law. Everyone agreed, it must have been a mistake! There’s no way my friends and family would lie to me just to heal my broken pride.

            Now is the time I need to follow my son’s advice of “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit,” but I am throwing a fit! I’m not yet 30, but within the last 4 years, my life has made a complete 180! There’s not one thing that’s the same, I’ve come from being the single girl who loved to head out to the club or bar on a Thursday, to struggling to stay up til 8:30pm. The girl who ran 7 miles before riding her motorcycle to the gym, to the girl who walks fast while pushing 2 kids in a “running” stroller and driving a Durango so everyone can fit! When you’re young, you can’t wait to be older, and now that I’m older, I wish I was young. Will we ever be completely satisfied with our age?