I can safely say that at least once or twice a week someone asks me how old I am. Never does a bartender hand me a drink without meticulously scouring my ID for any sign of alteration. “Yes,” I always say, “I know I look young.” Not too long ago a woman yelled at me from the side of the road exclaiming, “You’re too young to drive!” Some may say this is a quality to be grateful for, but after years of having to prove that I am, in fact, an adult, I’m kind of over it. That was, until today.
Finn and I have a game tomorrow in the lovely city of Dallas. Our flight was this morning at the perfect hour of 10:40am. Nothing beats a flight that allows for a normal night of sleep and gets you to your destination before all of the restaurants have closed for the evening. Like any normal traveler, we checked in and then made our way to the ginormous security line. I opted to not use my Clear Pass because I am just that nice and didn’t want Finn to stand in line alone. Thank god I did because the interaction we had with the TSA regulator was well worth it.
Upon reaching the front of the line, I handed my ID and boarding pass to the little, middle-aged man who was checking them carefully. He peeked at my ID and handed it back, and then reached for Finn’s and took a look at it. After supposedly reading the names and supposedly matching the IDs and the boarding passes, he looked at Finn and asked innocently, “Is that your daughter?” This was followed by hysterical laughter and no answer from either Finn or me.
I mean, come on! Not only do we have entirely different names, but our coloring is stark opposite. Finn is blond with blue eyes (See Figure A). I have brown hair and hazel eyes (See Figure B). We couldn’t be more different. AND, we are CLEARLY not that far apart in age. I guess if the man thought Finn was way older than he is and I way younger, it could have been plausible, but it was a giant stretch.
After laughing it off, we decided that we should just go with it. I have since been calling Finn “Dad” and I have been deemed “Pumpkin.” We purposefully have been using these titles as much as possible to get reactions out of people. So far, no one is noticing. The flight attendant paid zero attention to my complaint about Dad embarrassing me, and the dude at reception didn’t even flinch when Finn said he was disappointed that I didn’t keep the last name “Kelly” and instead took my scummy rehab-bound husband’s last name. Our next plan is for Finn to start the introduction to our game by saying, “I’m Finn and this is my daughter, Roxy.” Surely we’ll get some looks and hopefully some noteworthy commentary. Or not. At least we’re entertaining ourselves.
Figure A: