24 January 2008

Dear Mars,

I'm fine. I've been traveling since Christmas and just got back to New York last week. Blane and I took a road trip though Texas and Louisiana. I liked it but I would HATE to live there.

One incident that sums my feelings up:

While stopping at a petrol station in Waco, Texas I decided to buy a small beer (you can buy beer EVERYWHERE in Texas; at the milk bar, at the supermarket, at the petrol station). I took my little Bud Light to the counter to pay. The 40-year-old (inbred) woman asked me for ID. This is a constant annoyance in everywhere-except-New-York, they ALWAYS ask. So I showed the girl my driver's license. She said, 'I can't accept that.' Fine, so I showed her my passport. The woman suddenly looked REALLY confused. She opened up the passport to a middle page and looked at ME like I was the idiot.
'This isn't ID. I can't accept this!' She said.
'That's about the most official form of identification you can get!' I said.
'I don't know... I don't know this.' She said.
I was incredulous. 'That's ID!' I said, 'That's a total overkill of ID!'
'We only accept Texas drivers licenses or Texas State ID.'
'So, are you trying to tell me you don't sell alcohol to anyone who is not from Texas?'
She repeated, 'We only accept Texas drivers licenses or Texas State ID. I don't know anything about passports.'
'Well, maybe you can ask someone.'
So the woman called over to another girl, 'Hey, Ilene, do we take passports as ID?'
This other girl looked thoughtful, 'Well, you could... But.. it's on your own head. I know I wouldn't risk it...'
Lucky for me the manager wandered past at this stage. The women asked the manager and he grunted an affirmative. Jesus! The woman then handed the passport back to me and asked me how 'to use it'. I showed her the ID page, she checked it very careful... and then voilá, sold me my beer.

What hicks! A similar incident also happened to me at a supermarket in Austin. However, this time the girl refused to even look at my passport. Then, this big guy behind us in the queue was all annoyed and said really menacingly, 'The lady told you what she wanted... so if you can't give her what she wants then MOVE along.' We moved along.

And that's all I've got for you for now.

Love Dot

PS - Snap out of it! Get a job! Love London! Do what that guy, who was addicted to heroin, says and 'Choose life!'

3 comments:

Mex said...

wow thats hilarious. i do love that you can get beer everywhere though. in paris i bought it from vending machines in the hostel i stayed at. ahhhh vending machine beer....mmm

Jen said...

Wow, I never knew hicks like that really existed! Glad you ended up with beer though, that's the most important part :)

kiki said...

the world is a big place djen

not everybody (in fact, hardly anybody) is afforded a decent education like yourself