Innocent Criminal

This past September 14, I morphed from the criminal I'd been my whole life into something new — someone innocent, untouchable...legal. Sure I rang in my 21st birthday with 21 pitchers at Fieldhouse, but I was also celebrating something of greater grandness — the opportunity to drive down the street free of guilt, enter the football stadium without a devil on my shoulder, and cross the street without fear. Yes, being legal is less about the booze (we've always been able to get plenty of that anyway) and more about being a full human being with (the most) complete rights (we'll ever get).

Everyone that's been underage in Iowa City should know what I'm talking about. Before I turned 21 I felt like a delinquent during even the most ordinary routines. If I so much as walked by Liquor Downtown on the way to a friend's place I felt like I had sinned. At the grocery store... Oh god, I bumped into a wine rack? I hope no one saw me. I really didn't mean any harm. At Starbucks I'd be standing behing a police officer and expect him to whip out his breathalyzer (regardless of if being 10 a.m. on a Monday) and demand that I blow. That security guard at Old Capitol? I was sure he was waiting to whip out that warrant for my arrest. He probably even had pictures of me drinking at my friend's off-campus apartment. I'd probably been bugged. If a cop car drove on the same street as me on my way to church (okay, probably more Hamburg Inn) on Sunday, my heart would skip 3 beats.

Sure I consumed (illegal) alcohol in my underage youth. A little paranoia would never really stop me. But I don't think the problem was me drinking underage. I think the greater problem was oppression — I was trapped into believing that I was a bad person for being under 21. Blame it on the press, our legal institutions, Bush for godsakes even, but until I turned 21 I felt inferior. And I've never had so much as a speeding ticket in my life or a detention of any sort, for that matter.

And I didn't even notice it then. But I do now. It was an epiphany, really.

Striding into the Kinnick parking lot for the Western Michigan game, I finsihed off a Coors and through it in the trash can. Right outside of the gate. In view of security guards. Inches away from police. Real ones. Yea. Can you believe it? And they didn't even look at me like they used to, never gave me that questioning glance, that god-aaful disapproval. In fact, they didn't even pay me notice at all. It's like some mark disappeared off of my forehead at 21. I just blend in with all the other adults now.

I ordered a glass of wine with dinner the other night out at Devotay with my parents. Sometime in August I drank an (illegal) glass (or two or three or four) with my dinner at home. Six months earlier I was drinking a glass of wine (legally) with my dinner as well, only in Greece rather that the states. They all tasted damn near the same, minus a butter overtone here, an almond undertone there, a cheap, cardboard aftertaste more often than not from a box. And I acted more or less the same with each glass and each glass acted much the same as well — as a complement to my dinner.

So someone tell me why I've been a criminal for my first 20 years/252 months/7,300 days. Why must (mostly) responsible drinkers like myself be punished mercilessly for our lack of age? Or better yet, why must we put an age on anything at all? We're racing to another milestone and then in five years we'll wish we could regress again.

Americans should spend their time more wisely — stop the old from restraining the young, imprisoning them, belittling them. We only have so long to be under-21 and instead of wishing it would come sooner we should be savoring it.

-Vanessa-