on being called "miss"

I've mellowed in my old age.

After I had my feminist awakening in my early 20s, I cringed whenever someone called me "miss." I felt smaller somehow, as if the speaker thought of me as a child. I felt belittled, as if I weren't considered worthy of being spoken to with dignity. And I felt singled out, annoyed that someone would presume to know my marital status--and angered that they felt the need to define me by it.

I lived in the South until my early 30s, so I was called "miss" a lot.

Today, I went to my local package store (as they call liquor stores here) to buy beer. And the salesclerk said "I'll need to see your ID, miss." How charming, I thought. I've been legal to buy alcohol since Ronald Reagan was president, and this delightful (and presumably BLIND) saleclerk called me "miss" and wanted to see my ID. You should have seen the look on his face when he realized I was born smack in the middle of the swinging sixties.

I'm going to savor this one.