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the cruel superficiality of youth
Sunday, March 9 2003
I think the only way that the War of Distraction can be prevented is for the Pope to begin a prolonged papal visit to Baghdad on the pretense of "negotiating a solution." I don't think even this president would bomb Baghdad if the Pope was there. Short of that, I think it would be in Saddam Hussein's interest to encourage the placement of a UN peace keeping force. I can't think of a place more urgently in need in one of these.
This evening for the first time since moving to Hurley, we had people over to watch a television programme (that's pronounced "programmy"), in this case the season's second episode of Six Feet Under. The people we'd invited were all those who had attended yesterday's dinner party at Mary Purdy's new place in Woodstock. The people who turned up, however, were just a subset of last night's entourage. Katie and Louis didn't come because Louis was reportedly uncomfortable with some of the scenes between two of the show's gay characters. If they'd been lesbian and hot, I'm sure he wouldn't have had a problem.
We didn't have any alcohol to offer, so I made a last minute beer-run. I realized somewhere along Wynkoop Road that I didn't have any form of picture ID; I'd surrendered my Virginia driver's license to get my NY one, but it had yet to arrive via snail mail. I could have used my passport, but I don't normally carry it. This wouldn't be a problem if I actually looked like my thirty five years, but in this area even young cashiers routinely card me (word to all you underage drinkers - no one ever carded me in Brooklyn). I've found that I'm most likely to be carded by two different demographic groups - old people who think everyone less than forty looks the same, and young people who have no power and have been lead to believe that every alcohol purchase is an undercover bust. I don't know where the fine folks at the Hurley Stewart's fit - they always card me even though they should actually know me by now. Perhaps they're just genuinely concerned about the scourge of underage drinking - they seem like the sort of people incapable of ulterior motives. Nevertheless, I would have tried my luck there this evening were it not for a State Police car parked out front. The Heat has a way of scaring transcompliance out of even the biggest of scofflaws. If you don't believe me, ride around in the passenger seat with a cop some day.
I ended up getting my beer at the next gas station down. I saw the cashier and knew the demographics were good - he was bald and about five years older than me. No one knows the cruel superficiality of youth better than a bald man. As expected, he didn't card me.
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