“Sorry,” I said, and tossed the paper into my cart.
• •
The cashier was a pretty young teenager with orange hair and matching bright fingernail polish. Among items that I’d transferred from my cart to the conveyor belt: a bottle of top-shelf Chianti to christen my new existence. The cashier said:
“I’ll need to see some ID, sir.”
I smiled at her. “You’re kidding.”
She returned my smile. “We have to card everyone, sir. It’s store policy.”
I nodded. “I was about to start humming ‘You Make Me Feel So Young’.”
“Sorry?”
“An old song.”
“Oh,” said the cashier.
I handed her my — Stewart Detweiler’s — New York driver’s license. Like most drivers’ license photos, this one captured nothing so well as the fluorescent-lit glumness occasioned by a two-hour wait at the DMV. The cashier looke
