# What Did You Do On Your 18th Birthday? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 22, 2009, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920 "2009-02-22T05:09:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Booker57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Booker57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Booker57)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/61 "2009-02-23T14:13:31Z")
I turned 18 in Parris Island. I remember getting yelled at. Oh, it was raining also. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/62 "2009-02-23T21:30:21Z")
Nothing that would have distinguished it from any other day in that year. I stopped making a big deal of my birthday before I was ten, didn’t really bother again till my sister kindly insisted for my 25th. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/63 "2009-02-23T21:58:59Z")
1. This was the last summer out of three I was working at a local golf course. I think that was the year that my birthday saw a torrential rainstorm. Every person on the course came flying back to the clubhouse, leaving their motorized carts all over the parking lot. It was my job to park all the carts into neat rows in front of the clubhouse. I got soaked down to my underwear. The very second I finished parking the last cart, it stopped raining. At the time I was borderline religious, and I wondered exactly what I’d done to offend the Lord, seeing as this was such an obvious sign. The skeptical side of me thought that perhaps God was capricious and decided to toy with me, though by merely being soaked to the bone I got off more lightly than Job. An hour or so later my shift was over and I drove back to my parents’ home. I changed my clothes–my underwear was still wringing wet–and I had a deep theological inner dialogue. Then my folks had a party, probably with cake. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/64 "2009-02-23T23:42:05Z")
June, 1981, Ft. Benning Georgia I tried the grits for breakfast-yuk. Then I went out into the hot Georgia sun and did about a million pushups. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/65 "2009-02-24T01:44:50Z")
You’d think I’d remember my eighteenth birthday, given that I’m nineteen, but no, I don’t. Now my seventeenth birhtday- that was special… ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/66 "2009-02-24T02:18:04Z")
I had to “work” that night. I put that word in quotes because even though I got paid, I never considered being the drummer for my rock group _The Watchmen_, working. So I was 18 and we were playing at an AmVets Club in Bremen, Georgia… [insert spacy shimmering time travel scene here] At about 15 minutes before the New Year, our lead singer announced to the crowd that today was “Rockin’ Billy’s” birthday and everyone sang Happy Birthday to me. I had pretty much been drinking all night (some guy kept sending us beers and asking for “Wipe-Out”, so we played it as our “break song”) and I, (by then loose as a goose) stood up and took a bow and got ready to play the next tune. Not yet. Dewey (the lead singer) then announced that the band had a “birthday present” for me, and from somewhere out of the dark came this stunning brunette with legs and boobs that would not quit, and back in the 60’s, “everything” was just really tight and threatening to bust out… (_whew_). My “present” was a dance with Deena, a woman in her 40’s all us guys used for uh… _fantasy-type exercise_? I gave my sticks to John, the organist, and went out to meet Deena for our “Spotlight Dance”. The song was “Sleepwalk”. (Santo & Johnny - check it out sometime) Now, I _know_ I have some friends here who remember the 60’s and how we used to dance, and it wasn’t what you might call “chaste”. We called it “hunchin’” back then. Probably very tame compared to what goes on with our kids _these_ days. Well, Deena didn’t only dance. She rubbed, she bit, she felt, she tongued, she unzipped… [end spacy shimmering, time travel scene] I don’t think I have ever had a better birthday present than that in my life, and I was sure glad I was wearing _white_ peg-leg jeans _that_ night, kiddos. 😉 Quasi ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/67 "2009-02-24T03:01:31Z")
Gosh, now that I think about it, I don’t remember. I have a photo with a bunch of the people I knew from Project 10, the queer youth group I went to, but I don’t remember whether that was my 17th or 18th birthday. I think it was my 17th, but I’m not sure. I do know that I was getting ready to move out; I turned 18 in 1999 and I had promised myself that I was going to be damned if I’d let my first year of adulthood or the year 2000 go past without cutting ties (I was having trouble with my dad), and in fact I moved out on January 8, 2000. ---
**Author:** ![wolf-alice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9e8a1a/32.png) [@wolf-alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf-alice)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/68 "2009-02-24T17:02:32Z")
28th September 2000. Woke up with my bedroom carpet mysteriously aflame. Beat it out with hands. Spent all day asleep on my futon with my burns in a pint of tapwater. Later, put on my big trousers and put in my piercings and went to a tepid rock night at some sticky local venue. Probably drank vodka and kissed similarly terribly attired teenagers of either gender, then came home and ate beans. Unremarkable. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/69 "2009-02-24T17:46:17Z")
My 18th birthday? August 8th, 1981. I honestly don’t remember anything about it. I had graduated from high school (grade 13) in June and was on the way to university in September. > [@wolf-alice](#): > > 28th September 2000. Woke up with my bedroom carpet mysteriously aflame… Unremarkable. Your life is clearly different than mine. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Woo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7c8e57/32.png) [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/70 "2009-02-24T19:49:07Z")
Ah, July 9, 1971. My mother, siblings and I were back in our home town in California for a vacation, having moved 6 months previously (and inexplicably, to me) to North Carolina. I spent the day at the drag strip with the guy who is still my favorite boyfriend ever, plus a bunch of our friends. The evening was spent nursing my sunburn and working out ways to do the nasty that didn’t hurt the sunburn too much. I’ve never thought about it before, but that was truly the best birthday I’ve ever had. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/71 "2009-02-25T15:15:40Z")
Don’t remember. Considering that my mother had died of cancer about 3 1/2 weeks before my 18th birthday, I’m not surprised I don’t remember. On my 21st I got suitably plowed with some friends. And that’s about that. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/72 "2009-02-25T15:51:31Z")
Hmm. Sophmore year in college, October. I honestly don’t remember, and not because I got drunk/high either! I know there was no big deal made like there was freshman year in the RA group. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/73 "2009-02-25T18:28:03Z")
Probably bought my first legal beer. Don’t remember, which means I probably drank them too. That was back in the days of 3.2% beer. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/74 "2009-02-25T18:56:05Z")
August 19, 1988 Moved into my dorm room at Western Illinois University, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920/75 "2009-02-25T18:58:02Z")
It was October, 1969. I was a freshman in college. Went to my mailbox at the student post office, and there were no birthday cards, but there WAS a note from the Dean (who also ran the local draft board) that it had come to his attention I turned 18 this day, and needed to come by his office to register for the draft, so I did. Otherwise, it was a normal school day. 21 was the legal drinking age back then, so there was no celebratory legal beer to purchase. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-do-on-your-18th-birthday/486920.md?page=3)