CHAPTER 7: IS YOUR ACTUAL DATE OF BIRTH NECESSARY?

This chapter is dedicated to knowing when the truth is necessary, if it is “need-to-know” information. Usually date of birth is an I need to know and you don’t piece of information. Forms which “require” this information are job applications, driver license forms, health and automobile insurance, prescriptions, etc. This is the time to write your numbers sloppy or to say, “I don’t have my drivers license.”

Oona did this when she was asked for a photo copy of her drivers license when beginning work. God I admire her. She learned from her father who frequently had her and her sister lie about their ages as toddlers* to make him appear younger. Oona, who actually is not terribly concerned with her age, hiding it is more of a favorite pastime she shared with her father. Still, if you look her up, you can't find her age! And I think she has her driver's license, which is the source of all the date of birth web postings out there - - one more reason to hate the DMV.

* A valuable word. See page 30 for more details.

I took a defensive driving course today. I was the youngest one in the class (bliss). There were forms to fill out for this class and you know what information is on the drivers license, right on the fuckin front of the drivers license -- DOB. Why must they know that? Why, Why, Why?? Couldn't we just be in 10 year, even five-year categories? (and let us select the ranges, i.e. if you are 34, your range would be 18-34) Thank God the motor vehicle employees privy to this information are bureaucrats who don't care about our ages - - or us. And thank God I don't personally know any of them.

Throughout the half-day class I planned how to fill out that one line of the form. Wait for a break? In the lady's room stall? Well I waited till everyone left the room on a break and that's when I did it, now I just had to hide it. As I was walking out someone left hers right on top of the table: DOB 1949! How could she? Maybe it IS just me!

But the humiliation that day didn't end with the DOB question. No, in addition to the day, month and year of my birth, I had to put myself into a category. There were categories to choose from and only one to be in gracefully. Years and description such as young, middle aged or old labeled the categories! Dammit!! And who decides what is young, old or somewhere in between? I think I'd have a problem categorizing myself as an old driver because I was 55. With my date of birth right above it, I could not lie. Is this questions sole purpose just to be cruel? Who makes up these categories?

Depending on experts I listened to or what I read over the past ten years I have been in the following categories simultaneously:

Baby boomer*
Generation X
Young adult
Middle aged **

* How long did this boom go on? Didn’t this originally mean a bunch of horny soldiers came back from World War two in the mid to late 1940s and had sex a lot and therefore babies? I would imagine that lasted for a week or two, not 20 to 30 years!! LET IT GO historians.

**Some prominent sociologists/psychologistS/experts I still have ten years before I hit middle age. I really like those experts. They base middle age on whether you have children and other variables not necessarily directly connected to exactly how many years you have lived.