Identification and Ice Cream Panic

Recently at a doctor's visit, I was asked to produce picture ID in order for the receptionist to check me in. I guess people use other people's insurance cards to get medical attention. This started me thinking of all the times in my life that IDs were required.

It began when I was about 17 and I wanted to purchase alcoholic beverages. It occurred to me that when I first got my driver's license, it had no picture on it because there simply was no way to generate a picture into it in those days. We had not yet reached that point of technical sophistication. One year and I'm not even sure which it was, suddenly your photo was capable of jumping from your wallet onto your driver's license. Before that, I think it simply said under 21 or over 21 on the license so perspective liquor vendors were capable of differentiating legal versus illegal. Now those two terms refer to something completely different, but I digress.

In my own particular case, I was kind of lucky. I had a brother that was 3 1/2 years older than me and I simply stole his identification out of our mail, before he ever saw them. I had his draft card and voter's registration at the age of 17 1/2 and was able to frequent all the local Rush Street saloons. All my friends had fake IDs too and they got them in a multitude of ways, but without pictures on the IDs, it was your word against the merchants. I was even tempted once to vote.

Denali Bear Claw

On the topic of ice cream panic: Earlier today, I was casually watching the 5 PM news when this blood curdling scream came unannounced from the kitchen. It screamed something to do with ice cream, like "How in the "F" am I supposed to get the G-d blanking child proof lid off of this Rocky Road ice cream?"

Believe it or not, from the mouths of babes this scream came for the Lovely Jules, who was unsuccessfully opening a 1/2 gallon of ice cream. That's when she grabbed the pairing knife and slit it's fattening little throat from ear to ear! In the years that I've known her, I've never seen such passion and enthusiasm as she tore into the plastic top, just screaming as she finished her attacker off. In this house, the recorded life span of a carton of ice cream, that has not been hidden under the ice cubes, still remains at 3 hours and 12 minutes, (even in the child proof container).