Oasis Times

Last weekend I went up to Palm Desert to hang out with my parents. I recommend such an excursion for anyone who wants to feel really young and really pale. I got into town a couple of hours before they did and so after thoroughly inspecting the bathroom and jumping on the bed a little, I went down to the hotel bar.

The bar, like the hotel, like the town, is full of super-tanned people with wrinkles and coral-colored polo shirts talking about their triumphs on the links. I asked the bartender if she had the kind of whiskey I like and ordered a glass of it. She asked for my ID and when she took it and looked at it for a long time under the counter light and then turned around with her back to me and scrabbled at it for a minute before handing it back to me. I handed her my Visa, which due to bank screw-ups has a picture of a fluffy Golden Retriver snuggling with a kittycat. I'm sure that didn't go very much further than my ersatz fake ID towards convincing her that in fact I am on the home stretch of 29.

I started thinking about ways that I could prove my vintage: "I remember Expo 86!" "I saw Ghostbusters II in the theatre!" "CK One makes me think of algebra and purple jeans!" "I think of Will Smith as a radio star!" "I know who Christa McAuliffe was!" "I can moonwalk!" "I once had jams with Carebears on them!" "I can sing the Three's Company theme song!"

It's hard to say if any of these things would really work. Maybe the key is to not hang out in Palm Desert?

I talked to the pharmacologist next to me at the bar about Walmart and the lucrative trade of botox and fake boobs. Then my parents showed up and we drank large professional martinis and ate very small morsels of delicious food on beautiful white plates. Later when we were standing at reception, my mom double-dog dared me to take a bite out of one of their decorative green apples in their display. Which I did. So perhaps the bartender was right to scowl at me like I'm a teenager. Apparently I haven't made much headway past 15.