I was underage

“I was underage.”
Since it was New Year’s Eve and I was underage, it was decided that my friends and I would leave the city limits and go to a small cluster of bars in the middle of the woods. Certainly these fine establishments would not bother to check ID’s; they’d probably just be glad to have patrons. I would have the opportunity to celebrate the New Year like a real adult, a grown up, ordering cool cocktails at the bar instead of furtively mixing drinks in plastic cups in the dorm.

My sophisticated night out inevitably took a wrong turn when a trucker insistently asked me to dance. After I declined his invitation several times he conceded, “Aw’right, but you gotta do a shot with me. Ya like Jager?” I didn’t know what Jager was but a shot of any sort seemed preferable to a dance with Glen. The rest of the night was a blur and ended predictably as I spent the wee hours of the New Year with my head in the toilet at home, trying to quietly purge myself of the Jager bombs without my parents hearing. Très adulte.

–Kelly Conroy