The Great Gatsby-kidding me!

Today is the day. After finally living in my new area for, going on 8 months now, I decided it was time to get a library card. Mistake.

After stubornly driving around the street a couple times, refusing to use my GPS, I finally found the building. Walking in, I had no idea that I was about to endure the longest six minutes of my life.

“Hi! I would like to apply for a library card, please,” I pleasantly requested.

-STARE-

“I’m going to need to see some identification,” the librarian insisted, “….and I’ll need some parental consent.”

I abruptly stopped while in the search for my wallet.

“I’m sorry, what?” There is no way I heard her correctly.

“You are not allowed to be issued a library card without parental consent while under the age of 18.”

I stood there. Trying to process what was happening. I have envelopes stacked upon each other, sitting on my kitchen table right now that are begging to be opened and promptly paid. My feet are sore from the pumps that I’ve been wearing all day at work. I still need to go home and feed my dog and take her on a walk. These are all things that I consider to make me an adult. However, this woman is telling me that I look like a child….

“I’m sorry, how old are you?” Her questioning, abruptly ripped me out of my inner battle of confusion.

“I’m…I’m… 25.” Wrong. I’m actually 26. I keep forgetting this. However, this plan to come in and get a library card without any problems has thrown me off my game. I don’t even know what’s going on anymore.

“Oh, goodness! I’m so sorry. You just look SO young,” She awkwardly, takes my two forms of identification, “That’s a compliment, ya know. You’ll enjoy that one day.”

She sends me on my way to forage through the aisles and aisles of books. Books that contained words scribbled from some of our greatest scholars, columinists, and other wordsmiths throughout history. And what do I grab?

Yup. The straight-to-DVD “why do they even bother making these” visual novel, ‘The Last Song.’ It has two of my guilty pleasures: my girl crush Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana [Don’t judge.], AND the cinematic adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks book. Two for one?! You can’t pass that up.

As I’m walking back to the reference desk, I realize I’m completely feeding into this lady’s intrepretation of her first impression of me. Yikes. I might as well put my hair in pigtails and skip the rest of the way up to the desk with my lolipop and check out this Hannah…I mean, Miley Cyrus movie.

Each step seems to be happening in slow motion. I creep closer and closer to the counter.

“Quick, grab something intelligent, but most importantly, mature!” I think to myself.

I look around me and I see nothing but audio books. Hmmm….that isn’t going to solve anything. Aha! I’ll look for the book, “The Help.” That’s a great adult fiction book. Wait…I already bought that book for my iBooks collection! How can I mention it to her casually, to let her know that I am deserving of my age group?

Before I know it, I’m back at her desk. Empty handed, except for my PG-13 movie staring a former Disney actress. I look directly at her hands, refusing to make eye contact, and mumble something about checking out. I can feel the smirk on her face burning a hole through my now tightly closed eyes.

“This is so embarrassing,” I think to myself.

She mentions something about the due date. I don’t know…it was all muffled at this point. It was hard to get any sounds through the thick cloud of complex mortification that surrounded me.

I quickly snatched the case off the table, lodged it in my handbag, and slinked out the front door.

This always happens to me. Moderately challenging errands somehow turn into some kind of awkward situation. This is my life. Welcome. Grab a seat and enjoy the show…