Birthdays suck. Bleh. Now I get to be drafted, go to adult jail, not have sex with 15 year-olds, etc.
On the plus side are porn, guns, strip clubs, many dance clubs, tobacco(?), drug paraphenelia (sp?), gambling in some places, and not needing to renew my damn driver’s license so often.
I don’t know that balances out. Anyway, today was fun enough, I guess. One of my teachers had a baby this morning, so at school we celebrated our birthday and hers. My mom made her really good chili.
So anyway, after dropping a friend off this evening, I stopped to refuel at a combination convenience store/smokeshop/liquor store, and while inside I figured I would go ahead and treat myself to celebrate, and bought myself a couple of ultra-premium cigarillos to enjoy with a friend tomorrow, seeing as how we both enjoy them, and I could legally purchase them. Didn’t even get carded! I could have done it yesterday, or the day before… or the day before… and so on. Dang.
I was waiting until my best friend turned 18 so we could go buy cigarettes, lottery tickets, and porn together because, after all, what fun is it if you can’t share your cigarettes, lottery tickets, and porn with your best friend? (The last thing I want is a “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” charge.) But we’re lazy and haven’t bothered yet. Maybe one day…before all of our other friends turn 18, just because we can.
The day I turned 21 I absolutely stopped getting carded. Drives me up the wall. I barely get carded at the supermarket. Now I’m 22 I don’t really care as much, it’s more a convenience thing, but when I was freshly 21 it was a pride thing… I wanted to display my legality.
Anyway. As Lucki’s just alluded to, 18’s just a pit stop. Wait till next year – 19’s the worst. 18 has all the legal implications, 20’s the end of your teens, and 21 you can drink. 19 is just filler.
On the day I turned 21, the legal drinking age in Illinois went to 18. I was one pissed off dude.
That of course has changed back to 21 in the meantime.
You are going to quicly learn that now being able to do all those pre-18 “forbidden” pleasures is fun for about a minute.
Do us SDMB folks proud and register to vote, and then vote.
One piece of advice: Credit card companies are going to be banging at your door in a few minutes…don’t let more than one of them in.
Update: credit card companies have largely left me alone, but the damned armed forces are relentless. They offer me hats and stuff if I’ll listen to their recruiting pitch, and they all think that my name is “High School Student”, if their letters are any indication.
I’ve always found it interesting that legal age to buy porn here is 18, but legal age for sex itself is 14. In other words, you can do it, you just can’t look at it…
At the self-checkout line in K-Mart, I had picked up a questionable item-spray paint. The front end supervisor had to come to the checkout kiosk and verify that I was old enough to purchase the product. After explaining things (which he did very nicely) I looked at him over my half-glasses and mused, I’m old enough to have children old enough to buy that paint.
