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Friday, March 29, 2024

After finally turning 21, I realized I wanted to become an adult too quickly

I was a baby for the first 20 years of my life — or at least it felt that way. There was always something I wasn’t old enough to do: drive, buy cigarettes, join the Army, gamble, drink or enter a bar. You see, I had always wanted to be treated like an adult, ever since I consciously understood there were legal differences based on age.

Before I turned 16 and got my driver’s license, I had to rely on my parents for rides. I lived in a suburb in South Florida, surrounded by miles of scorching asphalt, packed with shiny cars. Sure, there were little oases: shopping malls, supermarkets and even the occasional movie theater, but these were few and far between. To get to one without a car was virtually impossible. I resented my parents for their absolute authority over where I could go and when.

The only escape I discovered was at the age of 14, when my neighborhood friends and I would sneak out of our houses and ride skateboards to the 24-hour Wal-Mart about a mile outside of the housing development. We drank energy drinks and tried to kickflip in the vast, dark supercenter parking lot.

Then, I was 16, and I could drive around. It was incredible. I started dating a girl who seemed to like me, but she might have just liked my car.

We hung around the mall, went to the movies and had sex in the back seat of my Ford. She stole Marlboro Lights from her mom, and we smoked at the park behind our high school.

There were caveats to being 16, though. My parents gave me a strict 11 o’clock curfew. When she and I eventually broke up, I had no way of to obtain cigarettes, which I had grown quite a fondness for.

I turned 18. This meant no more hopping from gas station to gas station until some clerk didn’t ask for my ID when I asked for a pack of Marlboro Lights. I bought cigarettes and porn and lottery tickets and spray paint and switchblades and got my nose pierced.

Still, there’s little to do when you’re 18 and living with your parents. The places where it was acceptable to just hang around with your friends were the same places where big tattooed bouncers would ask for your ID, charge you a $5 premium if you were under 21 and give your hands the emasculating black Xs of youth.

However, I could still attend concerts. I just had to check Facebook event pages for that depressing “21+” before I made plans. I recall one show this past summer, when I was 20. Colleen Green was playing at a bar in Miami called Gramps. I checked the event page: no 21+. All clear. So, I drove an hour south of my suburb to Wynwood, only to run into a terrible bouncer.

“ID, please,” the bouncer said.

I hand him my ID.

“Sorry, you can’t come in.”

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“Dude, just give me the Xs,” I said.

“This is a bar. You can’t enter if you’re under 21.”

“This is bullsh--; just let me in. I drove an hour to come here.”

“Well, you’re definitely not coming in with that attitude.”

I turned 21 a few weeks ago, so the days of angrily pacing outside of bars looking for a way to sneak in are in the past.

I can legally drink, I can buy cigarettes, I can rent a hotel room — hell, I can even join the Army.

I figured I should get all of this out of my system before I inevitably stop caring about the minor inconveniences I faced before I turned 21.

Actually, it’s pretty messed up that I still can’t rent a car.

Jeremy Haas is a UF English junior. His column appears on Wednesdays.

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