Incoherent Scribblings

A few weeks ago my sister and I decided to break out the blender and make some strawberry daiquiris in celebration of the arrival of my nephew. Nowadays I am little more than a social drinker, but on special occasions I still like to have a drink or two and besides, my sister was ready to have a drink after nine dry months.

Now my mom and step-dad keep some liquor around, but after looking in the liquor cabinet it was apparent to me that they didn’t have any rum, and I think the last time their daiquiri mix had been used was when my sister graduated from high school in 1998. So in order to make our celebratory daiquiris, it was obvious that someone would have to make a trip to the liquor store.

Because I thought it wouldn’t look too cool for my sister to take a newborn into a liquor store, I volunteered to go our local liquor-slash-convenient store and acquire our drinking paraphernalia, which included a bottle of rum, some daiquiri mix, a bag of ice, and some whipped cream.

Our local liquor store is not big: In fact it is just a section of the convenient store that has a false wall around it and a gate that you go through with a big poster on it that claims that “[y]ou must be 21 to enter this section of the store.” However, even though area is small, there was quite a selection of rum to be had and I deliberated over what brand of rum and just how much to buy for at least fifteen minutes.

I finally decided on a fifth of Bacardi (yeah, I know… why did it take me 15 minutes to get the “standard?”), picked up the bottle of daiquiri mix (luckily for me they only had one brand), went to the cooler, grabbed a can of whipped cream, and headed for the checkout.

I placed my things on the checkout and was just getting ready to tell the cashier that I also needed a bag of ice when I heard something that I hadn’t heard in many a long year:

“M’am, can I see some ID?”

At first I was flattered: After all, I haven’t been asked for ID to buy alcohol in probably seven years. I am pretty sure that I don’t look 21 anymore and I know he was just doing his job, but I can’t deny that it felt good.

Then I was amused: A. had specifically reminded me to carry my passport with me while I was out and about in the US for just such an occurrence.

Suddenly I was anxious: Since I no longer have an American driver’s license the only form of ID I have is my passport. I remembered from my waitressing days that the three acceptable forms of ID are a driver’s license, a military ID, or a passport, but I was concerned that the cashier might be reluctant to accept my passport anyway.

However, it turned out that my fears were unfounded: The cashier didn’t hesitate to accept my passport as a legal form of identification… even though I did have to point out where my birthdate was because he had never seen a passport before!