Getting carded

It’s always interesting when going out to see how people are going to react and interact. More specifically, it’s always interesting to see how people are going to react and interact with me. Case in point, recently I was out shopping at some little boutique shops. At one of them I was the only person in the shop. The owner greeted me and we exchanged a little small talk about a blown lightbulb she had. Mundane, I know. As I looked around at the stuff for sale the owner was standing there at the counter watching. After about 5 minutes I found something I wanted and went to make the purchase. I asked to put it on plastic and handed her my card. Before she even swiped the card she asked to see my ID. Not because she wanted to make sure the signatures matched. No. She was very quick to give the reason. Without my even asking she explained that it was because the name on the card was “Joseph.” Yeah, my birth name. She had pegged me as female and thought I was trying to use someone else’s card. Of course, after I gave her my ID and she saw it was really my card she apologized profusely and gave some lame excuse about her boss requiring to verify blah blah blah. The most comical part of it all is that I wasn’t presenting as female at the time... including not having shaved that day- stubble and all.