Monday, February 04, 2008

Leeeeegal

I have been legal for several weeks now. I just forgot to blog about it. But it is a big deal though, right?! I mean, I'm an adult. I can buy alcohol, and vote in general elections. I have also become legal to buy cigarettes for the second time in my life, which is quite rare. There aren't many people in the world who can say that. When I was 16, 16 year olds could buy cigarettes. Then they recently raised the age to 18....and now I'm 18. Which is a relief, because, honestly, you have NO idea how desperate I've been for a fag...
(Sarcasm. Judging by my current level of fitness, if I ever took up smoking, I probably wouldn't be able to walk without going light headed).

I also realised today that if my parents die, I won't have to be adopted by someone. And I could possibly even make myself legal guardian of my brother, sister, cats and dog, so as to keep the remaining members of the family together.

Anyway, on to less morbid things. I am going to tell you about my first experience of (legally) buying alcohol:

It was a beautiful Wednesday in January. It had been freezing cold, and had rained non-stop for several days, but suddenly the sky was blue, and the birds were singing. (Surely they should all be in the south of France at the moment...?). It was the kind of day during which you feel inexplicably happy, but don't want to question it too much in case you jinx it. Like when you sit a maths paper and realise you're three quarters of the way through and haven't skipped a single question .

However, on this particular day, I had an extra reason to feel happy; it was my 18th birthday. I had extra freedom. I was my own person. I could do whatever I wanted. Yeah, technically I know that I will never be able to do whatever I want, no matter how old I am, but the sense of power went to my head just a little bit.

So, after school, I decided to go and buy alcohol - just because I could.

I went along to Somerfield. Not the classiest place to buy alcohol, I know, but it was the only place that was (kind of) on my way home. So I went in and tried to decide what to buy. I looked around... my preferred alcoholic beverage is red wine (yeah, I'm sophisticated), but to be honest, I really can't tell the difference between the different types of wine. There was a nice looking kind that was on offer. I walked up to the counter, bottle of wine in one hand, ID in the other.

I handed the bottle to the woman, who smiled at me as she scanned it. 'Thats £6.99 please, love'. You have got to be kidding me; for the first time in my entire life, I have ID thats actually useful, and she doesn't want it. I tried to hand it to her, but she just smiled again, and said, 'It's alright darling, I'm sure you're 18... you've got an honest face. You are 18, aren't you dear?'. Whatever happened to the whole 'Are you 21? It's my job to ask' thing? I mumbled, 'Well...yes, but today!'.
She flashed me another smile, but this was a completely different one. A patronising one. 'Oh, thats lovely! Congratulations, dear! 18! And what a lovely day to celebrate on! Here, pass me your ID - of course I'll look at it!'. By this time, there were several people queued behind me, and it was starting to get embarrassing. I didn't want her to look at my ID just to humour me, but I didn't feel that I could refuse. I passed it over, and she spent several minutes rooting under the counter looking for her glasses, while gushing about how lovely it was that it was my birthday, and wasn't I lucky to have the whole of my life stretching ahead of me, seemingly endless... Eventually the search was over, and she put her glasses on and squinted at my driving licence (Still provisional. Don't ask.). 'Ooooh, look at that! Wow... Is it really the 16th already?!' Well...yes. But if you don't believe it's the 16th, don't serve me. It's illegal. 'Awww, look at you, all grown up!'. I heard a snigger behind me, and decided I should probably try to draw the show to a close. I handed her the money, and stuffed the bottle in a bag as she rang it up on the till. 'Have a lovely day, won't you love? And don't drink it all at once...', she called after me as I power walked towards the exit. I turned my head slightly as I went through the door, in time to catch her winking at me conspirationally.

....and they wonder why this area is the underage binge drinking capital of the UK.

Since then, I have kept my ID hidden safely in my bag when buying alcohol, and only produce it when challenged. I am not going to remind people to 'challenge 21' if it's going to end in my humiliation, even if it provides amusement for other shoppers.
Fortunately I don't buy a lot of alcohol. Embarrassingly, my younger brother has a higher alcohol tolerance than I do. 3 pints of beer, and the room doesn't quite keep up with my head as I skip around, giggling like a 4 year old....