" How old are you?” I hadn’t been asked this in a place of business since I was seventeen, when I tried, unsuccessfully, to buy a fifth of Jack Daniel’s at a liquor store across the highway from Mr. Grady’s gas station. It was just as unsettling to be carded at the other end of my life, for a fucking biscuit, no less, but I answered as civilly as possible. “I’m "

― Armistead Maupin , Michael Tolliver Lives (Tales of the City, #7)