I don’t drink, so I haven’t spent a lot of time in bars. However, last week I was on a trip with a few co-workers. They all drink, so I spent a lot of time in bars and lounges.The non-alcoholic options are quite limited in such places. If I wanted something to sip on while I chatted with my co-workers, I’d order a water. If I wanted something a bit harder, I’d order up a Coke. But if I wanted to get sloshed, I’d get a Coke on the rocks and keep the refills coming like waves on a beach (I'm only a social soda-drinker; I don't drink it alone very often).
On one particular night, in a lounge at the hotel we were staying at, I was socializing with a glass of cola (on the rocks, of course). I had drank about two when the bartender walked up to the group I was with and asked to see my ID.
“I’m only drinking a soda,” I stated defiantly. The bartender, undeterred, remained until I grudgingly pulled out my driver’s license. It was the first time I had ever needed to prove I was over 21 in order to finish up a glass of pop.
It was a good thing that bartender was there to keep me on the right track. Nobody should be able to drink a pop and watch other people get drunk unless they’re of age.
Getting carded in that lounge got me thinking. Young people should be getting carded in other settings and situations. It could do them good.
The first place to start would be plays and musicals. I know I would have liked getting carded when my mom would talk my family into attending a play. I’d read the program from start to finish about 8 times and there would still be another hour until intermission. A boy at the age of 12 does not have the judgment necessary to agree to attend one of those things.
Another place to start would be sports-card shops. When I’d walk into those places as a young buck I had no self-control. If people would have carded me at those places my savings account would currently be double what it is. You have to buy a lot of packs of cards in order to find the one rookie card you're searching for.
The same goes for firework stands. If I would have been carded by the vendors who supplied me with explosives, the field above my aunt’s house wouldn’t have caught fire and I wouldn’t have gone deaf for a week after lighting a firecracker with a wick the length of a piece of beard stubble.
Yes, if you're going to require ID for a pop in a bar, you might as well take the policy further and really do some good.
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5 comments:
I'm proud of you, Ross. You're just like Steve Young back in the olden days--ordering milk in a bar while all of his buddies were getting sloshed.
Great post.
I have been carded only once. It was when my dad walked me through the Silver Dollar Bar in Jackson Hole. It was a good thing they carded me because it was 9:00 in the morning, the bar was empty, and I was about to be looking at alot of alcohol on the wall behind the bar, and some empty glasses that could possible be filled with alcohol too I might add. My little sisters eyes were too young to be seeing a famous bar though. She waited outside.
Hey, you should take that as a compliment--he thought you just might be one of those nineteen year-olds trying to sneak in for a drink. You're just getting better with age!
Ross Mitchell, you are the funniest man. I am snorting here at the office. Tell your wife I miss her!
Rock, thanks for the posts - I have become a faithful reader. My record I think is 14 glasses of the good stuff (Coke on ice) in one single sitting at the Outback steakhouse in Florida. Talk about a buzz.
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