My second year in university I decided I was not going to suffer through another dining hall Thanksgiving, and so I was going to throw my own Thanksgiving dinner for those of us stuck in the dorms over the long weekend.

So I went out and bought a dozen plates and fancy glasses and cutlery, and planned the full menu (sans the turkey).

Then I went food shopping at Trader Joes (for those who don’t know, its a chain store that sells delicious gourmet and organic foodstuffs).  I filled a cart with sweet potatoes and cranberries and salad stuffs and fancy non-alcoholic sparklies, and made my way to checkout.

And the cashier said “card please.”

And I said “you need a card?”

And the cashier said “yeah, I can’t let you buy it without a card”

And I said “I didn’t know Trader Joe’s had membership cards?”

And she said “Not a membership card, an ID card”

And I said “Why do you need an ID card?”

And she said “You can’t buy alcohol without an ID card”

And I said “Well, I’m not buying alcohol”

And she said “Yes you are” and pointed to the sparklies.

And I pointed to the BIG silver stars on them that said “Non-alcoholic”.

And she said “Oh”

And I finally got to buy my groceries.

Thanksgiving was lovely, and the day after my closest friends and I took the leftovers and a picnic blanket and the fancy glasses and had a picnic on the lawn.

And the university staff came and jumped on us and said we couldn’t have alcohol on the university grounds.  And once again I had to defend my poor, innocent, non-alcoholic sparklies.

The funniest thing about all of this is that I don’t drink, at all, ever, so this is pretty much the only time in my whole life when I have been carded!