My 21st birthday was a bust.

Linking up with all these cute ladies today because you KNOW I can't resist a good one-time link-up.

I guess the title is misleading because my 21st birthday wasn't really THAT bad. But here's the true story (and the part of this post I'll delete soon): most my friends were older than me, so I had been drinking underage at bars for almost two years before I turned 21. In my eyes, the best part about turning 21 was that I could do it legally now. Nothing about my weekends was going to change. You feel me?

Anyway. My 21st birthday was on a Thursday, which was awesome because I (and all my school of education friends) didn't have class on Friday. What could go wrong, right?

I woke up on Thursday morning, and my roommate Jenna had decorated the apartment. (I thought I had a picture of it, but I couldn't find it. Boooooooooo.) Adorable. Amazing. The day was off to a good start.

I went to class like normal on Thursday. We got out of class around 5, and my parents took me, Jenna, and two other friends to PF Changs for dinner because I really wanted a PFX for my birthday. (Have you ever had one? THEY ARE THE BEST.) When I ordered my drink, our waiter didn't even card me, and I was so mad. LOOK AT MY ID, FOOL. I AM LEGIT.

(Contrary to my face in this picture, this was only my first drink of the day.)

When we got home, several of my friends were waiting on me so we could go to a few bars. As soon as I walked in the door, shots happened, and then somehow I got wrapped in toilet paper:

I don't even know.

Then, it was time to go out! One of my friends was still under 21, so we had to plan around that a bit, which was fine, because as we know, I was a pro. I was feeling pretty great thanks to those shots and I hate making plans for groups of people, so I was letting other people make the decisions on where we would go. We ended up at this bar in Greensboro called Coopers, which, looking back, was a pretty interesting choice. We walked in, I triumphantly handed the girl at the door my ID, took it back, and started to walk into the bar.

But as I'm walking away, I hear "wait, can I see your ID again?" That's never good, so I said "no." (Real smooth, Alyssa.) One of the other bouncers walked up all intimidating-like and said "show her your ID again, or you have to leave."

Really? You're going to yell at me, this tiny little person on my 21st birthday? You are rude.

I hand her my ID again, and she looks at it and then looks back up at me and says "You know your license is expired, right?"

Um, no. No I didn't. "It expired today because of my birthday, I guess? You can still let me in though... my birthdate is still valid."

Nope. It had expired on my 20th birthday. A year before. For real.

Awesome.

So we left, and drove another 15 minutes downtown so we could go to the bars downtown. Buuuut guess what? The same song and dance happened there. Since when do they care THAT much about your license being valid? I mean really. (I know they care a lot. BUT IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY.)

At this point, I was tired, upset, and I had lost whatever buzz I had when we started. I wanted to go home, but my friends (who were awesome) insisted that we go somewhere... anywhere. So we ended up at this DIVE bar close to campus. You know the place... where no one has showered and the bartenders serve to seventeen year olds. But I didn't care. My friends told the bartender that it was my birthday, and he took really good care of us. The night was salvaged, but man, it was a struggle. Karma is a real thing, people. Do not drink underage!

The next day, one of my friends drove me to the DMV, I got a new license (that doesn't expire until I'm 28) and that night, we had a do-over. It was a lot better.

I mean, when all else fails, just take some margaritas straight to the face, right? Right.