"I'm 22, dammit!"

I look very young for my age. If scientists took a lunch break from developing anti-aging creams and instead studied my delayed aging process they could figure out how to make everyone look eleven years younger (I had to one-up the TLC show).

When I tell people I just graduated from school they automatically assume middle school and tell me that I’ll  grow out of my awkward teen years soon. And when they find out that I’m actually 22 they reassure me that once I’m older I’ll appreciate looking younger. Like, great, when I’m 78 I’ll look 75. I’ll really impress all the men then; they’ll be wetting their Depends just to get with a young broad like me.

Throughout this whole summer I’ve tried to casually walk into bars only to be stopped by massive bouncers looking for an ID. They stare at them for hours trying to figure out how I got such a good fake and if I had to sneak out of my house to be there. They always reluctantly hand it back to me as if it ruined their night that I’m actually of age. By the time the bouncers are done scanning my ID for all possible forgeries, my friends are six pitchers deep and I’m shamed into actually feeling like I used a fake.

It’s like some sick joke that I’m technically too old to go back to college yet I don’t look old enough to be out without parental supervision. Read More »

(SARA, 23, enters a dive bar with a small group of friends. She is the last one in.

The second she steps in, a middle-aged guy in a leather jacket, the bouncer, stops her at the door.)

MIDDLE-AGED GUY

ID.

(Our heroine is surprised surprised because this is a serious dive bar, and not a single one of her friends got carded before her.)

SARA

Just me?

BOUNCER

Yep.

Sara shows him her ID. He looks it at very carefully, gives it back, and then smiles and nods Sara in.

Once inside, Sara finds her friends.)

SARA

I can’t belive the bouncer carded me.

FRIEND

What bouncer?

(Sara turns to point at the bouncer, but now there’s no one standing at the door.

They leave soon after and Sara spots the “bouncer” drinking with his friends.) Read More »