Youth be known
Jan. 30th, 2006 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4The scene: Newmarket Road Tesco.
I load the conveyor belt with a couple of cut-price bottles of Jacob's Creek, some ready-made pasta salads, a ready-made stir-fry, a couple of tins of dolphin-friendly tuna -- we're looking at a fairly dull middle-class lunch-break shop -- and then walk to the end of the checkout with my reused carrier bags, returning the cashier's automatic "hello" with a slightly distracted smile and a "hi", and wait for my shopping to start rolling towards me. The cashier picks up a bottle of wine, looks at the bottle, looks at me doubtfully, and then says "Could I see some ID please?"
I look back at her, momentarily confused. ID? For buying alcohol? I'm old enough that I don't expect it any more, but still about three years away from being flattered by it. But my brain catches up, and I say "oh, yes, hang on," and start ferreting around in my wallet.
As I'm fishing my driving licence out, and then as she's counting on a year at a time (I can see her lips moving) from 1978 to 2006, I suddenly realise what's going on. I'm wearing a knee-length grey skirt, grey woollen tights, a blue and grey stripy shirt, and black round-toed velcro-buckled sandals... Oh dear, oh dear.
I am in Tesco, at lunchtime, trying to buy wine, and I am wearing school uniform.
I load the conveyor belt with a couple of cut-price bottles of Jacob's Creek, some ready-made pasta salads, a ready-made stir-fry, a couple of tins of dolphin-friendly tuna -- we're looking at a fairly dull middle-class lunch-break shop -- and then walk to the end of the checkout with my reused carrier bags, returning the cashier's automatic "hello" with a slightly distracted smile and a "hi", and wait for my shopping to start rolling towards me. The cashier picks up a bottle of wine, looks at the bottle, looks at me doubtfully, and then says "Could I see some ID please?"
I look back at her, momentarily confused. ID? For buying alcohol? I'm old enough that I don't expect it any more, but still about three years away from being flattered by it. But my brain catches up, and I say "oh, yes, hang on," and start ferreting around in my wallet.
As I'm fishing my driving licence out, and then as she's counting on a year at a time (I can see her lips moving) from 1978 to 2006, I suddenly realise what's going on. I'm wearing a knee-length grey skirt, grey woollen tights, a blue and grey stripy shirt, and black round-toed velcro-buckled sandals... Oh dear, oh dear.
I am in Tesco, at lunchtime, trying to buy wine, and I am wearing school uniform.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-30 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-30 05:36 pm (UTC)When it mattered I did dress more sensibly, usually -- e.g. for the "Women in Business" seminar day thing that they made us attend, when I wore a very grown-up navy wool suit with a cream silk shirt and pearl cufflinks. (I think that's when I realised that it's all faking it, and if you fake it well enough, however ironically you intend it, it's as good as doing it for real.)
And I wore the scarlet crushed-velvet skirt-suit to my Oxford interview, and got in. :-)