Respect Authority

Even though I’ve been able to drink legally for years now, it never really gets old. Flashing my ID at area bars, with its red-highlighted “Under 21 until 7/26/2006″ line always makes me feel special, privileged, or at the very least relieved to have left the days of worrying about bars’ carding policies behind me.

So it’s always with great trepidation that I go back to my mother’s house in Pennsylvania, where drinking age is trumped by what she considers the negative stigma of having a few beers in the privacy of your living room.

See, outside of the obligatory glasses of wine with Thanksgiving, my mom’s not much of a drinker. Sure, she’ll get the giggles after two Coronas, but she’s long since left her days of beer-chugging behind, if those days ever even existed. And since she’s not familiar with the satisfaction of cracking a cold beer after a long day, she looks at my own decision to knock back a few over vacation as something akin to rampant alcoholism. As though after pounding the Magic Hat I’m going to wander into traffic on the Pennsylvania turnpike, pulling up my shirt and shouting at passers-by.

There’s nothing quite like enjoying alcohol in the freedom of your own home, or the even more socially liberated atmosphere of a New York City bar, and then suddenly feeling awkward about having one or two beers in the presence of your own mother. Does this end at some point? Will it be okay to drink socially once I’m 30, or 40? Will my mom throw me silent glares as I pop the bubbly at my own wedding? At what point is it okay as a parent to admit that your kids drink, that PEOPLE drink, and that drinking doesn’t always mean getting blackout drunk? I mean, shit, I accepted that the day I graduated college.

The only solution I can think of is to bring more sophisticated and unacceptable drugs into the house, at which point my mom would begin to think of beer as a viable alternative to my heroin and crack addictions. Maybe then I’ll be able to drink in peace.