Shelley Wright takes a wry look at life

STOP - before you read any further, I need you to take part in a little test. Have a good look at my picture at the top of this page and ask yourself how old you think I am.

Go on, cover up the next couple of paragraphs and have a serious think.

Now, I know it's not the best picture in the world - and people who know me assure me I look nothing like that in real life - but what do you reckon?

Surprise! I was 24 last month.

What did you say? 12? 14? Did you think I was on work experience or something?

Don't even bother with rest of the jokes - I've heard them all before.

In fact, I've heard them three times this week alone and they're starting to wear a bit thin.

I'm even thinking of getting a T-shirt printed with "I'm 24 - I am, honest" on the front and a copy of my birth certificate stamped on the back. I don't know what it is that makes some people think I'm so young either, because others don't seem to give it a second thought.

Take last Friday, there I was, celebrating a friend's hen night in a Bolton club with 25 other Haslingden harridans when two spotty youths approached.

Now I didn't mind being chatted up by a couple of lads who looked like they couldn't get an 18 video between them but when they had the cheek to ask me how old I was and then openly laughed in my face when I told them, I felt like poking their eyes out with my straw.

And they must have thought I was born yesterday when they tried telling me they were apprentices with Arsenal.

Then on Saturday I was on a night out a bit closer to home when someone else wanted to know how old I was. He almost spat his beer over the table when I said 24. And you know they say things come in threes? Well, yesterday King Hat Trick of Humiliations arrived in the supermarket when I couldn't get served with a bottle of wine.

I'd spent twenty minutes wandering up and down the aisles looking for an inspirational meal only to be told by the battle-axe behind the till that I could take the shopping but not the bottle of South Australian Chardonnay at the back.

"Are you 18?" the cantankerous old bag growled through the lipstick frosted to her face. "And, more to the point, can you prove it love?"

Well not unless you take a dog-eared National Lottery ticket and an AA membership card as proof of age, I thought, inwardly fuming and rapidly turning beetroot red.

"I'm 24," I said through gritted teeth.

"Well you don't look it," she barked. And, if that wasn't embarrassing enough, when I got home I had to explain why we were having baked beans on toast and a carton of Ribena for tea when I'd promised an Oriental feast.

I really didn't like to say I couldn't get served.

But no one understands - everyone I tell reckons I should be pleased I don't look my age and that I will be grateful for it in ten years time.

Oh yes, I'm so pleased I think I'll have a drink to celebrate - anyone for a large raspberry milkshake on the rocks?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.