The Trouble With Lying About Your Age

                                                                             

I'm (on the right) with my adorable sorority sisters in 1981. l'll never tell which one was my partner in crime.

I've always done it. From an early age, my parents even encouraged it. One year, they had my older brother pretend to be nine when he was twelve in order to get into a drive-in movie for free. My dad quizzed him several times to make sure he could smoothly rattle off his fake date of birth, so that our parents would only be charged for two tickets instead of three. I could rest easy, as I was really nine, and in the clear. My brother worked well under pressure, and passed with flying colors during the practice drills. When my dad pulled up to the front of the line, the cashier asked him our ages. Before my brother could speak, my dad anxiously blurted out, "He's twelve and she's nine." They never asked my brother to lie again, but I was a different story.

As I grew, the lies grew with me. When I was fifteen, I passed for eighteen at my brother's college campus. The drinking laws were very lax in the 70's, so I just had to say the fake date and year I was born in before I transformed into an instant coed.

Things became more difficult during my college years. The drinking age changed from nineteen to twenty-one, and if you were caught with a fake ID, it was immediately confiscated. Fortunately, my tall, blond sorority sister came to the rescue with a copy of her driver's license.

It's true how everything comes around full circle. Now I fib about my age at the movies in order to get a senior discount. Some of my friends have caught me in the act, and hide while I purchase our tickets. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't the same age, and older.

As for my lovely, kind and considerate older sorority sister, today she has a bionic hip, and still looks great in a bikini. Though at fifty-four she is a year older, she could pass for ten years younger. You would think I'd learned my lesson, but once a liar always a liar.

At a recent college graduation party for a family friend,  I decided to join in conversation with a group of women whom I'd never met. Introductions were made, and the topic of age came up. One woman said she was forty-five, another fifty-four, and then it was my turn. As they waited for my response to this silly question, I thought it only appropriate to respond with a silly answer. I concentrated on keeping a straight face when I told them I was seventy-two. Without missing a beat, the younger woman replied in all seriousness, "Well, you must have stayed out of the sun then."