Things Remembered And Used For The Arbitrary

I graduated from college in 1999. Today, nearly six years later, I was asked for my college student ID number. I stumbled, then it came right out, fluidly, as if I had used it just the other day.

The guy behind the video counter asked me to repeat it. That seemed odd. It seemed a rhetorical question. "Why?"

Apparently, you now need at least a partial college education, or the student number of someone who has had one, to rent a movie, in my town.

Seems to me that this arbitrary divide could be used better elsewhere, like in fireworks sales.

(By the way, the mudslides arrived a little early, but the forecast was generally correct.)