Not Teen Action

I look very young. I'm only five feet tall, and I have a baby face and cheeks that great aunts ache to pinch. I'm almost 30, but I look like I'm about 18, 21 tops. The other day, a 32-year-old man told me, with a look of surprise upon hearing my age, that I had "held up well for 29." Held up well for 29? If 29 is the new 65, I want my AARP discount. What do I have to do to look old enough to get that? Quit moisturizing?

Although I am not considered to be a looker by most men my own age, middle-aged men are into me, and I'm sure this has something to do with my youthful appearance. Fifty-something men who you can be sure have "Hot Teen Action" in their Google search histories frequently make suggestive glances and flirt with me. One day, I apparently wasn't giving a man the reaction to his wink that he was seeking, as his eye began to twitch so emphatically I asked him if he was having a stroke. He looked dismayed and slunk off with his copy of On Our Backs, the lesbian porn magazine, which he had not quite concealed in his Financial Times. When the glint returned to his eye, I knew that he was going to go home to soothe his bruised ego with the seventh DVD in his "Girls Gone Wild" subscription.

My appearance leads to other problems as well. Although I am often not taken seriously in professional situations by people who are not aware of my professional status and experience, there are much more disturbing functional consequences. It interferes with my ability to purchase alcohol. Every time I buy wine, an annoying scenario consistently plays out. It's like every convenience store clerk watched a "When Kari Buys Wine" video while in training and were quizzed on how to handle the Standard Kari Wine Transaction. The situation inevitably unfolds as such:

I place the wine on the counter and slide my ID over to the clerk. The clerk examines me suspiciously before even looking at the ID. When he picks it up, he scrutinizes the ID skeptically, and if wearing glasses, even does that peering-over-the-top-of-the-spectacles thing as he looks from the ID to me, from the ID, to me. When I raise my eyebrows in impatient frustration, the Standard Discussion begins:

Clerk (apologetically): Oh, it's just that you look so young.

Me: I know. I get this all the time.

Clerk: You look like you're about 18, not 29.

Me: Sir, I can assure you that my chromosomes have decayed well beyond that which would be seen at the legal drinking age.

Clerk: Chromo-somes? You into that? I was in a three-some once. (winks furiously, slightly uncovers his copy of On Our Backs)

Nearby Customer (interjecting): I thought she was too young to be buying wine, too!

Me (trying to be conciliatory so I can just pay and leave): Yeah, you know, my mother was carded well into her forties.

Clerk: Well, you must have good genes, then.

Me: Yeah, but I wish they were taller genes!

Then we all have a good chuckle and I'm allowed to purchase my moderately priced pinot grigio.

As I walk out with my wine, I can hear Interjecting Customer muttering to Clerk under his breath that my ID must have been fake, but Clerk counters (no pun intended) that he gave it to me anyway since I'm into weird sexual stuff. I seethe, and when I get home I am prompted to drink off my anger. Then I wind up drinking all of my wine, so I need to go back to the store to get more, and the cycle continues. The state should sanction them for contributing to alcoholism.

I began to grow scattered gray hairs when I was 23, and, unlike most prematurely graying women, I consider my slowly silvering temples a blessing. I encourage their appearance, and when they are more abundant in a few years, I plan to accessorize them with a PTA meeting flyer, a baby formula stain on my shirt, and a soccer ball magnet for my car. I will keep a "Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's Forty!" novelty birthday knick-knack on my desk. And, instead of looking like a girl too young to buy alcohol, I will blissfully be perceived as an old drunk.