Whenever I watch my favourite team play, I have the most awesome experience.
I will be there at the favourite team’s field, which happens to be in the U.S. of A. The husband and I will fetch a hot dog or some peanuts or a burger and we’ll decide we need something to wash it down.
More often than not, that something will look very much like a cold beer.
“May I see your IDs?” the concessionaire will ask.
Every. Single. Time.
It matters not if we’re at one end of the stadium or the other, or if we’re on the second level or the third.
“May I see your IDs?” we’ll be routinely asked.
Whenever this happens, the seller of said beer will take our drivers’ licences and peer at them very, very closely for a minute or so. This, I can only assume, is to ensure that we haven’t tampered with them in any way to make them say we’re 21 or older.
Here, I must make a note: we are indeed 21 or older. We are, in fact, 21 or much, much older.
Still, it’s awesome, and one of the many reasons I love my favourite team. The people who work at my favourite team’s field apparently think there’s an outside chance I might be a 20-year-old dressed up as someone whose first pension cheque is just a few laps down the road.
It’s odd, this carding thing. Up until I was 28 or so, I was regularly asked to show my ID.
But now I’ve found myself in a very different territory, one in which all manner of businesses offer discounts to members of the Golden Age Club. You name it: they’re everywhere.
The funny thing is this: there’s no consensus on who a senior is. Some retailers say it’s someone who’s 65. For others, it’s 60. For others, it’s 55.
I will make an admission. I’m somewhere between the high end and the low, but no matter. I always ask for the discount. And I always get the discount.
No one asks for me ID. No one does the favourite team drill and ask for my driver’s licence, only to peer at it very closely.
This is both rewarding and irritating. I’m delighted to get the 10-, 15- or 20-per-cent discount on whatever it is I’m buying, but I’m miffed that no one would dare entertain the thought that I might be, oh, a youthful 58-year-old who’s trying to pull a seniors’ fast one.
Hey, you never know. Just ask the folks at my favourite field. They need proof that I’m not a baby.
