Monday, February 21, 2011

Normally, Don't Trust My Age

I may be changing the name of this blog to "My Disguise Is Working."

Some of you may have seen references on Facebook to a meeting with the cops, my being carded and an article about people with glasses. I thought I'd give more detail here.

Thursday we had unseasonably warm weather and Burt thought it would be a good idea to go to Top Golf and hit a few. Neff and I met Burt there and while Neff couldn't swing due to a back problem Burt and I hit a few balls and we all went through a few buckets of beer. Burt had to leave to pick up his kids from school so Neff came up with the idea of going to Jimmy's Hot Dogs for a dog and a beer. After that we went to Eddie's and thought we were settling in for our usual Thursday night of drinking and trivia.

This changed when I heard from Burt that he was staying at the house until his sitter showed up but Beth would like to go out early and get some wine at the Tuscan Wine Market. So Neff and I said we'd meet her there at 7:45. We left Eddie's* and headed over. We met Beth, split a bottle of Cab then headed back to Eddie's for trivia.

*This is Beth's favorite part of the story: When we left Eddie's Jen let us leave our tabs open knowing we'd be back later that night. No, we're not alcoholics. It's probably the glasses (see below).

Burt was there and Kathy showed up a little later. We won the first round of trivia but then lost the rest. We closed the bar and as we were leaving we noticed some police activity around the building. We walked out the back door as that's where our cars were. I was at or near the front of our group. As we neared the sidewalk a cop was putting handcuffs on a tall guy that had been in the bar earlier. The cop told us to go back into the bar. We turned around and headed back. As we were knocking on the locked back door to be let inside he then said, "Wait, you guys look normal. Stay out here, I have some questions for you."

While I've been called a lot of things in my life, most of them synonymous with "smart ass", I've never been called normal. Normal people would have spent a heck of a lot more time in the past two years looking for a job and normal people certainly don't start blogging in 2011. But given the amount of alcohol I'd consumed that day I was just happy I wasn't the one wearing handcuffs. However, as Beth pointed out, he called me normal not sober. We gave him whatever information we had on the detainees, they had been sitting next to us at the bar and while appearing drunk they didn't do much else, and went on our way. The arrested folks had apparently had a huge fight on the street and someone in the neighborhood called the police.

On Saturday night I went out to dinner at Naomi Sushi with three friends who shall remain nameless.* They range from 3 to 5 years younger than me. As we ordered our drinks our waitress, a lovely young Asian woman, paused then looked at me and said, "I need to see your ID." The crowd moans. "Oh my god!" "He's the oldest one in the group!" I produce my ID and the waitress says, "Hmm...I may need to get my eyes checked."

*Respecting my elders.

Now, truth be told, I probably get carded once or twice a year. As someone in his mid-40s this is quite the accomplishment especially considering the amount of alcohol I drink.* But I'm usually by myself or at least not with my closest friends** so this was super fun. I was "gloat-filled" all night. After we had a few post-dinner cocktails, again at Eddie's, my friends and I got to talking about how I could look younger than them and what the women in our group could do to change this. I suggested half shirts and they said that wouldn't work. I then suggested low cut tops and they scoffed and changed the topic probably knowing I was just angling to see some cleavage.

*I think my glasses help to conceal the bags under my eyes, another benefit to wearing them. It also should be noted that looking young is a family trait. My parents don't look their age and very few people on my dad's side of the family do.

**Yes, I was out with the wife of a close friend. I'm so vain though I never gavotte.

Karyn posted a link to this article on FB. It states that people who wear glasses appear to be more trustworthy. I guess for the most part I'm trustworthy but I also know two things - 1) I've done stuff* and 2) I'll almost always go for a laugh. That means that I've blabbed things just to get a laugh. So I'm not really that trustworthy. The people closest to me can tell if I look guilty or, as someone with dyslexic hearing might say, if I look like the canary who ate the coal.** But if people think I'm trustworthy, great.

*You know...lie, cheat, steal..."stuff."

** No one that I know has ever said that but he could have.

So people think I'm normal, young and trustworthy. My disguise is working. If you need me I'll be out trying to pick up 22 year-old girls while lying about my age.

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