Something scary happened while I was waiting in line outside Madison's. My friend Erik just started bouncing at Madison's, so a couple friends and I decided to check it out.
While we were waiting in line, I overheard two guys chatting behind me. One of them said to the other, ""Ethan just texted me. He said there are a lot of hot women out tonight.""
The concept of girl vs. woman or boy vs. man has always eluded me.
Do women dance in front of the mirror in their underwear on a consistent basis? Can women name all the Disney Channel stars and recount, in detail, the nature of all the feuds between them (really, Miley!?!)? Do real women eat ice cream for breakfast, or think it's cute and not disgusting when their guinea pig poops every 20 seconds? Do grown women even have guinea pigs (they should, they're adorable—especially when they poop)?
As soon as I caught the ""w"" word from the grown-ups behind me, I was suddenly self-conscious of everything. Did my ponytail make me look younger? Were they going to ask for proof of employment in addition to my ID at the door? Why can I share clothes with my 11-year-old-sister? Why can I fit into all of her shirts if my thighs are too monstrous to fit into her jeans? Are the people behind me staring at my thighs?
""It's not my fault, OK? I still look awesome naked,"" I snapped at the perverts behind me.
""Excuse me?""
""Never mind,"" I said, walking into the bar, squeezing my thigh muscles to shrink them and show those assholes what they were missing.
Jews technically become men and women when we have our Bar or Bat Mitzvahs at 13, but this seems flawed on so many levels. I stayed home alone and babysat my siblings for the first time when I was 13, and subsequently thought someone was breaking into the house every ten minutes. My parents found me huddled in a corner clutching a kitchen knife and my teddy bear when they came home. I told my siblings to hide in the basement and fend for themselves. That didn't seem or feel very womanly.
I don't think boys should be considered men before they learn to control their erections, or at least hide them properly. Nor should girls become women before they see an erection without running away crying, which hopefully hasn't happened by 13. They should also learn algebra first as well.
I felt insufficient walking around Madison's, like I was an imposter and someone was about to ask me, ""So, what do you do?"" There were men wearing suits and ties and women in heels that would've given me blisters before I could've finished putting them on.
I overheard a conversation between two men in suits with gelled hair in which one said to the other, ""You look great!"" and the other responded, ""Are you looking in a mirror or something, because you look incredible!""
I don't think I've ever heard my male friends compliment each other's appearance. I'm not sure if that's a reflection of my age, or my friends.
When it came to ordering drinks, I felt like the entire bar would erupt with laughter if I ordered my usual vodka lemonade, so I ended up drinking a bunch of amaretto sours and almost dying of a sugar rush, because I didn't know what else was appropriate for grown-ups to drink.
When I was little, I once asked my dad how you know if you're a grown-up. He told me when you go out to dinner with your parents and you pay for it, then you're an adult.
But at this point, he probably didn't anticipate that I would graduate college with a journalism major in a broken economy and that as a doctor, he would probably have significantly more money than me for what could be most of my adult life.
So unless we're talking fast food family dinners with fewer than four people, I'm not going to pay up anytime soon.
If you'd like to give Kiera your best recommendation of grown-up drinks, e-mail her at wiatrak@wisc.edu.
