Drinking ages and driver's licenses.

As you may know, the legal drinking age in the States is 21, but you've still got to bring your ID with you if you want to purchase alcohol...even decades later. For example:

But here in the UK, not only is the drinking age lower (18), but if you're trying to buy alcohol, they also only require you to show an ID if you look under 25.

Which is probably why my sweet flatmate (someday you'll appreciate your youthful looks, m'dear!) gets really excited when she doesn't get carded.

Now, I don't really drink. But I do cook. And I've got quite a few recipes that require wine and whatnot. So the other day, when I wanted to make some pasta, I popped over to Tesco to grab some white wine. A friend of mine was with me, so we both got carded. 

We're both 24, which is well over the legal age, so it shouldn't be a problem, right? Well...

See, both of us are from the States. So both of us used our driver's licenses as ID. I was expecting this to throw them off. Last time I had to show my ID, the lady spent a loooooong time staring at it, before pointing at the issue date with a puzzled expression. No, love. 2008 is the year I got the license, not the year I was born. That'd make me 4 years old.

Anyway, she went first, and showed the lady her Arkansas license. After taking off her glasses to look more like the picture of herself, it was deemed acceptable. Then it was my turn. I gave her my New Mexico license, and could tell right away that this was going to be a problem.

"They're different..." she said suspiciously. 

"Yes, I'm from a different state," I said. And my friend tried to help out, chiming in with, "Every state has a different license."

The woman shook her head. So I offered to show her my bank card, since it had my name on it too. She took it and looked at it. "Do you have anything else?" 

"Uhhhh...." I fumbled for my university ID, which not only had my name, but also my picture.

She sat there for a few minutes, comparing the three cards, and throwing me sideways glances, before she finally gave in. And we got our white wine.

Whew.

And just as an aside: If I were an underage drinker trying to fool someone into letting me buy alcohol, so I could party it up and get wasted (or whatever those crazy kids do these days), I don't think I'd be buying a single bottle of dry white wine.

But that's just me.